Racism within Refereeing

Some time ago I read an article by an anonymous journalist regarding the topic of racism in refereeing within English football. Within the article was an interview with a referee that disturbed me greatly, enough for me to publicly criticise this piece. 

I should start this by making my stance on the matter of racism perfectly clear. Racism is vile. It is a cancer on our society and it has been very positive to see certain players taking a stand against it and highlighting the problems that occur within English and world football. I do believe these incidents are much more common outside of England however that doesn’t make it right and very recently we have seen a couple of incidents regarding this matter. One incident of racism towards any person is one too many. 

What is encouraging however is how much society in general has moved on in the last half a century. Compared to the times of prime time shows such as Til’ Death Us Do Part in the 60s and 70s which was accepted then as racist but funny, to today’s society where that simply wouldn’t be tolerated even in jest, society has come a long way. Much of the time it is self policed as people today know that it is not acceptable. 

I see racism as offensive as any other kind of abuse. I don’t see any kind of abuse as worse than another, it is all just wrong. 

With regards to BAME referees in England this is a difficult theme for me to comment on. Just as female referees will tell stories of sexism in the game, it is difficult if not impossible for me to say how it feels to be abused on a football pitch because of my gender or my colour. I’m a White British male approaching middle age...I probably fall into the majority category of referees in England. 

However...I was disturbed by the article. The article suggested that black referees specifically are being prevented from rising the refereeing ladder because observers are holding them back. This was an incredibly broad sweeping statement that offended many observers who read this and rightly so. To be accused of being a racist is a shocking accusation without any evidence or substantiation of that claim. 

I couldn’t sit back and allow this sweeping statement to tarnish the reputation of our incredibly dedicated and committed observer workforce. The job that these men and women do week in week out to help develop referees at all levels, often for a pittance, is amazing and should not be underestimated. Yes of course there are the observers who we as referees feel are harsh or that mark lower than others, however it should be recognised that these people give up their time to try to help a referee become better. 

It is a fact that since Uriah Rennie there has not been a BAME referee in the Premier League. The reason why this is the case is not one that I can pinpoint specifically and I don’t claim to be the expert on that. However what I would say is that the opportunities to reach that level are equal across the board. Sian Massey-Ellis has proved that gender has no boundaries in refereeing and if you’re good enough then you have the same opportunities as everyone else. 

The claim in the article that specifically black referees are being prevented from rising to that level was not evidenced at all. If evidence shows clearly that there are observers who mark referees lower because of their ethnicity, colour or gender then these people should be removed from the game immediately. There is no place in football for people with attitudes like that and I have no doubt that I speak for every referee when I say this. 

Until the evidence is provided that clearly shows this to be the case however, offensive accusations such as those in the article cannot be thrown around national media without being able to back that up. That is a very dangerous game to play and is more likely to create suspicion between a referee and an observer of different colour or ethnicity. Would it then become easy for a referee to claim that they have been discriminated against when they receive a low mark? It could do yes. This is not what we want to see. An observer is a member of the referee team. They are a friend at the side of the pitch and someone who the referee team should be able to trust that they will be objective and most of all fair. In my 17 years of refereeing at every level I have never felt that I have been treated any differently by any observer who happened to be of a different ethnicity or colour. Nor did I ever receive concerns from referees that they felt this was the case when I was working for my local County FA. 

County FAs work hard to engage potential new referees from BAME backgrounds. Can more be done? Of course it can. However placing a quota nationally is not the way forward. There are certain areas of the country that have a far higher proportion of the demographic that is from the BAME community and so it falls more on these areas to create a much higher number of BAME referees. This is not an easy task but it is one that I believe the FA are taking seriously and are working hard to improve. 

Back to the article...there was a proposal of ‘Ghost Observers’. Basically people who turn up anannounced to check that the observer is marking the referees correctly. Well, this system already exists. At professional level there are observers there at certain games to observe the observer (quite a mouthful) and ensure that the standard of report and feedback is of a high and consistent level. Lower down the pyramid the assessment reports are checked to make sure the wording matches the mark given and these are checked to a highly critical standard. What this has done is to remove the marks of 95 and create a much closer range of marks thus leading to the higher probability that the referee with the highest average at the end of the season has performed the best consistently. The same goes for those who finish bottom. 

The idea of this ghost observer however was to check if the observer was marking fairly the referees from BAME backgrounds, specifically black. I struggle to see how this can work. An observer marks a referee based on what they see. With the ghost observer there, what if the observer happens to see the poorest performance that season from a black referee? Does this instantly create suspicion that they have marked based on colour? 

Who will these ghost observers be?? I assume they will be other observers, otherwise they would not know the criteria of what the match assessor is actually looking for in the first place. How do we trust therefore that the ghost observer doesn’t hold views that they are apparently trying to uncover? Again I assume that anyone could be a ghost observer, not just someone who is black? This therefore means that an observer is under suspicion before the game has even started and would this then create a pressure on an observer to not give an accurate low mark to a black referee for example that reflects the performance for fear of being labelled as a racist?

My point of this post is simple. Calling somebody or a group of people racist in a national media piece without evidence of any kind is simply offensive and wrong. If evidence is there then I would be the first to request that person removed from the game. Do we however start making judgements of referees based on the players that they caution and start looking for patterns of how many BAME players are cautioned and sent off and begin having them secretly watched as well??

Clearly there are still idiots within football who think racism is acceptable. It isn’t. However I do think that our fantastic observer workforce watch referees with the desire to help and improve and they mark the referee objectively and fairly based on the performance they saw, not on what gender, colour or race the referee was. I would love to see more young referees, male and female, from BAME backgrounds coming through the game to the top levels. People such as Phil Prosser, himself a former top referee in the professional game, are doing very good work to promote this and to encourage people from BAME communities to take up the whistle. 

What doesn’t help though are offensive and accusatory news articles without foundation or evidence of any kind that create suspicion and division. 

It is time we looked at how we can further encourage potential BAME referees to take up the whistle and to make sure they feel they are in a fair environment in which all referees have the same opportunities to progress. To not achieve the level that you felt you should have achieved is not an excuse to claim this was not down to your own ability plateauing but on some other extenuating reason such as institutional racism. To then preach to other young black referees that their chances are limited because observers are racist is again spreading completely the wrong message and unless proven otherwise is completely false. 

We have a clear pathway in England for referees...not black referees and white referees, not male referees or female referees, not Christian or Muslim or atheist referees...but for all referees! If you’re good enough then this will show through I assure you!!