It was a lightning-fast action. I had to rewatch the footage a few times. But what remains is the grim expression on the face of the chairman of the Turkish football club Ankaragücü as he rushes at referee Halil Umut Meler for a punch. “I haven’t forgiven him yet. And I will never forgive him,” Meler told the Turkish newspaper this week Hurriyet.
The temptation is to downplay the incident. Oh yes, Turkey. Other culture. But how unique is what happened there? Far from it, I understood from the words of Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee. “Horrific,” he called the attack. But even more horrifying, he said, is that thousands of unknown referees around the world are being verbally and physically abused. “It is up to everyone who loves the beautiful game to take action. Before it’s too late, before this cancer kills football.”
A colleague listed all the incidents from the past year (that made it to the media). The result is shocking. From Greece to Peru, from Spain to Australia: referees are under attack everywhere. At least half of the incidents described involve physical violence. The perpetrators are opposing players, coaches and (especially) supporters. The victims: almost always men. It often, but not always, concerns matches in the lower echelons of football, the images of which are distributed via social media and sometimes picked up by mainstream media. In the menfootball, because I did not come across any incidents of violence in women’s football.
Take the Irishman (name unknown) who suffered a broken rib in April after a kung fu kick in a first division match. Or the Greek Andreas Gamaris, whose shop was firebombed by angry fans last month. Or the Peruvian Martin Rojas, who was beaten by three Deportivo San Regis players in March and then had to run for his life when half a legion rushed at him. Or Dutch assistant referee Kevin Moed, who had a chair thrown into his back by Alcides coach Wilko Niemer in March. Or the Spanish referees who expressed their concern in a letter in April that directors in La Liga speak so disrespectfully about them that it fuels violence. Or the Argentinian (name unknown) who in July was kicked in the head by the teammate of an amateur player whom he had just given a red card for pushing. Or Brit Dave Bradshaw, who suffered a broken nose, broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder in October at the hands of an angry Platt Bridge player. “If it continues like this, there will be deaths,” warned the British organization Ref Support.
Efforts are being made all over the world to stop violence against referees – a rapidly dwindling group. From heavier punishments for perpetrators, point deductions for clubs to body cameras for referees. The British newspaper DailyMail Last month, it launched a campaign, Stop Abusing Referees, to draw attention to the ten thousand referees in Great Britain who have turned their backs on their sport over the past five years. One of them spoke to the newspaper. He called the explosion of violence in the eleven years that he was refereeing “disturbed.”
Let this piece be a support for those thousands of unknown minds from Jut. Who would all those football stars have been without referees?
Danielle Pinedo replaces Marijn de Vries.