As referees blow full-time, football leagues across England face a deepening shortage of match officials
Hello, Luke here. As part of my master’s degree, I wrote a three-part series covering referee abuse in English football. This is the first chapter; I’ll be uploading sections two and three later this week.
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Each time I step onto a football pitch – whistle in hand, dressed in black – a statistic rings in my ear like tinnitus: with each passing season in England, around 2,000 referees quit – many of them due to abuse.
With the sun beating down on an astroturfed pitch in Essex, I wonder if today will be my unlucky day. It shouldn’t be, I’m officiating an U16s friendly, but after five years of whistle-blowing, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.
Due to the beautiful game’s great resignation, the Football Association (FA) faces a deepening referee shortfall. It is estimated that match official numbers have dropped by a third over the past five years, with the cancellation of referee courses during the pandemic adding to the problem.
However, football’s culture of abuse is also intensifying, with thousands of referees turning their backs on the sport, disenfranchised by what they call a lack of support from the FA.
According to University of Portsmouth research, 93 percent of match officials in England have experienced verbal abuse from players, coaches, or spectators, with a further 19 percent suffering physical abuse. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, the situation is completely different: just 51 percent of referees say they have been verbally abused, with physical abuse also much less widespread.
As a result, English football’s supply line of match officials could soon run dry. Not only are referees walking away at all levels of the sport; many that stay avoid promotion fearing they will experience worse abuse as they oversee more competitive matches.
English FA referees are ranked across seven levels, with those placed in tier four and above handed semi-professional and professional assignments. They receive higher pay and work on better pitches but also take charge of fixtures where passion is more likely to boil over into abuse.
“Unless you’re a level four referee or above, I don’t think the FA cares about you,” Ant Canavan, leader of The Referee Forum, explains. “They’re aware of you and know there’s a huge grassroots problem… but it’s a system that needs to be completely reworked and I would love for someone at the FA to acknowledge that reality.”
Although the shortage has developed over several seasons, its latest consequence is the postponement of fixtures at the park level. Higher divisions will be impacted next if the situation deteriorates further.
“We’re losing referees by the 1000s every season and we’re approaching a crunch point,” says Canavan. “Maybe it’ll be next season or the year after, but we’re already seeing that there aren’t enough referees to cover the amount of football out there. It’s starting to creep into the semi-professional level: there aren’t enough referees to officiate and it’ll have a major impact.”
In a push to attract new match officials, the FA shortened its referee course during the pandemic. Previously, would-be whistlers underwent a week of practical and theory sessions, before taking a laws of the game test and officiating five matches. Now, trainees undertake five online modules, receive two days of in-person tuition, and embark on a five-game trial to earn their offside flags.
While the Referees’ Association, a charity that supports match officials, argues that changes to the course have left them “picking up the pieces,” Scott Taylor of the Cumberland FA says the “shortened version [has] much more emphasis on practical refereeing and prior knowledge of the laws.”
Demetri Anastasiou, a former semi-professional defender, has experienced the realities of becoming a match official in the post-pandemic world. He completed the FA’s course last summer and was caught off guard by the transition from e-learning to the pitch.
“I don’t think [the course] is anywhere near the same as when you referee a [real] match because the players aren’t like ‘oh, he’s a new ref’, they don’t know how long you’ve been doing it, so they just shout for every decision. I was like ‘whoa, I did not expect this at all’ after my first game,” Anastasiou says, stifling a laugh at the thought of his steep learning curve.
Unusually, he embarked on the promotion scheme during his rookie season, advancing from level seven to level six. The North Londoner was required to officiate a minimum of 20 fixtures, complete a laws of the game exam, and undergo three observations to jump up the pyramid.
Referees like Anastasiou seek promotion for familiar reasons: better pay, new challenges, and enhanced conditions. However, many match officials steer clear of ladder-climbing – deterred by the abuse they experience at lower levels – or quit altogether.
“I just thought it was normal to go for promotion,” he admits. “I was obviously doing some things wrong because I’m a new referee but being observed was really helpful: they give feedback about your positioning and arm signals. It was great because I could incorporate their suggestions and slowly improve the professionalism of what I was doing.”
Every referee has a story, ranging from the absurd to the offensive, inked into their memory, often from a fixture played several seasons ago.
Anastasiou’s tale slides into the first category: he was called a “hotdog” by a disgruntled player, an insult so creative it lifted his spirits during a difficult assignment.
Canavan’s tone is less jovial when asked to recall a noteworthy incident from his career.
“I can think of a match from 15 years ago,” he explains. “The final score was 5-3, it was in Ellesmere Port, and I can still picture how the sun was dipping in the sky because of the emotional trauma of two teams abusing me so much. I sent three players off from one team and five from the other, so the match was abandoned. But here we are, a decade-plus later, talking about that game.”
Canavan’s trauma is not unique but illustrates why English football faces a referee shortage. When confronted with rising tides of abuse, match officials face a dilemma: quit while they are ahead or risk further misadventures for low match fees.
Referees earn between £20 and £35 per fixture when they first qualify, with game payments increasing as they earn promotions. However, travel costs and matchday time commitments expand as they move up the pyramid, eating into their increased fees. As a result, competitions officiated by post-promotion referees face the same issues as park and pub leagues.
Although the situation confronting England’s FA is severe, it is not one of a kind: governing bodies in Germany, the United States, and Canada are also confronting shortages, with referee abuse the leading cause.
Nor is football’s plight original. Haynes Evans, a recreational ice hockey player from South Carolina, watched in horror as an opponent threatened to assault an amateur referee last season.
“I was on the bench [on the other side of the rink] and I heard it,” Haynes explains, reflecting on an eventful day in Greenville. “All I could hear was ‘I’m gonna deck the guy, I’m gonna go out there and kill that ref.’ His teammates had to grab him: it was outrageous.”
After apologising for his outburst, the player received a two-week suspension and swiftly returned to the ice. The league’s referee shortage continues.
Back in England, the refereeing community is searching for solutions. Ref Support UK, an outspoken campaign group, is leading the charge for the introduction of body cams, arguing they “will help address all forms of abuse”.
It has been against the laws of the game, set by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), for match officials to wear cameras. However, IFAB has backed the FA’s request to establish a pilot scheme for body cams, with changes afoot ahead of next season.
Even so, some match officials remain sceptical of the plans.
“I think it’ll help in terms of processing disciplinaries, but we already have so many cameras recording matches, capturing the abuse, assaults, and dissent,” Canavan says. “Wearing a body cam will provide evidence, but they won’t highlight or stop anything that we don’t already know about.”
Mercifully, my ringing ears fall silent as I blow into my whistle for the first time of the afternoon. Today is my lucky day: the match passes without incident, besides a spicy first-half challenge and resultant cries of “have a fucking word, ref.”
In the aftermath of the foul, a cynical lunge on the cusp of the penalty area, instructions and protestations are exchanged.
“You’re treading a fine line with that challenge, make sure you’re not sweeping his leg from behind – alright?”
Instinctively, the player pleads his innocence, panting from the exertions of a high-tempo match played under blue skies and stagnant air. We quickly agree to disagree and turn our focus to the following free-kick.
It was the perfect exchange, the sort Canavan hopes will become the norm.
“I think a positive referee-player relationship is about sharing mutual respect from the very start,” he explains. “When you’re out and about at the shops, the cashier doesn’t have to earn your respect: it’s not like you turn up at the checkout and start shouting at them.
“There’s mutual respect everywhere, day-to-day, except in football, where this tribal mentality of hatred means you have to earn it. It makes no sense whatsoever and it needs to change.”
Perhaps that will cure my tinnitus.