Coping With Abuse—Child Referees in Football: Is It All Just Part of the Job?

Abstract

Following identification of child abuse embedded in sports, there has been a significant increase in research exploring the culture of sport and how this might be challenged to enable children's voices and support safeguarding. This has, however, focused largely on the experience of youth players with the place of youth officials significantly neglected in this context. This paper explores the experiences of youth referees through three English county FA case studies utilising a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of interviews with U18 officials, adults working with them (Referee Development Officers, Referee Mentors, Youth Representative, Allocation Officer and parents). Findings showed that youth officials routinely experience abuse (physical/verbal) when fulfilling their role. The nature of this abuse is both physical and verbal, direct and proximal and largely normalised. Youth officials are actively prepared to anticipate and manage abusive situations. Despite wearing symbols indicating their status as children, youth officials are still subject to being targeted by both parents and managers. Abusive situations are rationalised as being the responsibility of the referee and due to the culture of football and wider society. Without cultural change, the continuation of abuse of referees is foreseen as an inevitability. Focusing on education, challenging a facilitating culture, and creating a discourse that cultivates the positive treatment of referees is crucial to addressing concerns to protect children's rights in refereeing football.