Northamptonshire youth football team banned after referee incident

The FA handed out 360 bans in one season for attacks on match officials

A youth football team has been suspended following a "serious incident" involving a club referee.

Northamptonshire's Football Association (FA) said it is investigating and offering full support to the official.

The FA has reported seeing an increase in abuse of referees and match officials since the pandemic.

One young referee told the BBC no other job involved putting up with the sort of abuse referees face almost every match.

Ralph said there was abuse during every game

In a statement, Northamptonshire FA said the suspended team was "fully assisting" with an investigation into the incident.

The association said it would not tolerate any form of abuse towards match officials and was "disappointed that we need to remind participants of this".

'We're targeted'

Ralph, 17, has been officiating for a couple of years.

He said: "At every game, there are levels of it [abuse] and certain people have always got their opinion.

"We're almost targeted", he added, and said there were not any other jobs where such abuse would be tolerated.

He added it was not usually the players who cause the problems.

"Most of the time, the kids just want to play. It's the parents and managers," he added.

Luke Scott from Northamptonshire FA said there has been a spike in bad behaviour post-pandemic

Luke Scott, head of operations for Northamptonshire FA, started refereeing when he was just 14.

He said: "It feels like it's got worse now.

"We saw a spike in behaviour post-covid - the number of discipline cases coming into us were through the roof and we haven't really seen a drop-off since then either."

Significant injuries

There has been a number of incidents recently involving assaults on referees. A spectator was banned from the touchline earlier this year after a teenage referee was punched twice during a match - the ban was later rescinded.

A man was arrested after a referee in an amateur game in Wigan received "significant injuries".

The FA handed out bans to 380 players and fans for threatening officials in grassroots matches in the 2021-22 season.

Mr Scott believes one of the problems was bad behaviour in the top flight of the game, which he felt had given fans a licence to copy what they see.

"Spectators at all levels feel empowered - 'I've paid my five pounds so I can say what I want to the referee' - and at that level it's not necessarily exclusively at the referees, the opposition players get it just as bad.

"I think the culture within football needs to change, particularly at that level."