Merseyside Youth Football League cancels all matches this weekend over referee abuse
They say there have been multiple incidents of inappropriate and threatening behaviour this season
Merseyside Youth Football League has cancelled all matches this weekend in protest over abuse aimed at match officials.
They say there have been multiple incidents of inappropriate and threatening behaviour this season.
Reports from the Football Association show 380 incidents across adult and youth levels of the game across the country.
MYFL has issued a statement:
"We as a league will work with the relevant authorities and respective clubs to ensure those responsible are held to account, however due to repeat incidents we feel we must send a clear message that we will not tolerate this in our league and as a result all fixtures will be cancelled for Saturday 15/10/22
"Any form of anti-social behaviour is unacceptable and whilst these instances only represent a very small section or people attending matches, the mindless few who choose to behave in this wav are demonstrating a complete lack or respect for our match officials, league officials, often their opposition and also the Clubs they are a part of.
"Our message is simple - those intent on causing trouble are not welcome at our matches and we ask you to 'Stay Away’.
"We have a code of conduct within our league and anyone found to be behaving offensively /inappropriately can expect to be dealt with by the league, county FA, their club, and the police were necessary. Any individual/team or club found guilty of breaching the code of conduct can & will be removed from our league.
"We will be calling a compulsory meeting in which all clubs must attend / inc all managers, any clubs/team officials who don't attend will get no fixtures from our league, we will also be asking LCFA to attend. Each week while speaking to managers, we are hearing that managers are not being given information from their Clubs, multiple teams are trying to operate without DBS checks, which are a mandatory requirement, and games are being cancelled after teams have travelled. Our pre-season managers meeting was available to all and support is available, but few attended.
"We cannot allow this toxic behaviour to continue to escalate [...] Enough is enough."
"We will continue to work closely and collaboratively with our Clubs, Match officials and LCFA to ensure that the measures we put in place are robust and effective, whilst also acting quickly when incidents do occur
"We apologise to those clubs/teams who abide by the rules and are always respectful.
"We do understand that cancelling all fixtures may seem unfair and we sympathise fully with the majority of our clubs/teams who do things the right way and create a positive environment for the children and officials.
"However, we cannot allow this toxic behaviour to continue to escalate, we have always been proud that our league doesn’t have a lot of abuse etc., yet currently the number of incidents and the severity of incidents are rising weekly. Enough is enough.
"If we don't take action now we risk league officials /volunteers resigning, and referees also walking away, and without them we have no league for our children.
"We pride ourselves on being a league that protects & supports our officials and that is what we must do now for the benefit of all involved."