Your Weekly Referees being Attacked Round-up

By: Bob | June 12th, 2007

You might think the life of a referee is pretty darned glamorous. You get to spend 90 minutes a game running in circles, while wearing a cool uniform and blowing a whistle. You are in charge and you have 22 supplicants bowing to your ever beck and call. It is indeed a good life as long as you also enjoy being scorned by many, admired by few and as long as you don’t mind being physically attacked from time to time.

Witness what recently happened in a district league match in Germany between Mahndorf FC and SV Mardin. In the 85th minute the referee sent off a couple of players for fighting. The players continued to fight on the sideline and the referee went over to break it up. This is when the fun and frivolity ensued.

At this point the Mardin coach, 30, stormed on the pitch and knocked the red card and notebook out of the referee’s hand.

“In the ensuing tumult the 37-year-old referee was punched in the face and fell to the ground. While he was lying on the floor he was kicked in the neck several times, with the coach apparently taking part in the kicking,” the police said.

The coach was hauled away by his own players and broke his shoulder in the process. He had to be taken to hospital.

“The unconscious referee had a bucket of water thrown on his face and when he came round was also taken to hospital,” police said. “Everyone seems to have calmed down now.”

It is nice to now that after a referee is knocked out and a coach breaks his shoulder while being dragged away from the referee that he was kicking that calmness can still rule the day.

The same cannot be said in Cambridge, Massachusetts where another referee ended up on the losing side of a fight with a Sunday morning player.

The referee, who is from East Boston, told one 31-year-old player from Everett he could not play in the game unless he removed a ring from his finger, according to police reports. The suspect refused to remove the ring and he and his brother punched the referee in the face, the referee told police.

One witness told police the suspect had also assaulted a referee about two weeks earlier at another game at Danehy Park.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve killed men for lesser things than asking me to remove a ring. All of this makes me think that this guy should be handling the training of referees worldwide.