A&H

Rainbow Laces

Supporting LGBT is in no way political. Basic human rights like that aren’t political. You can get into more specific aspects (I won’t argue those with you, mainly because I’m a member of the LGBT community and I don’t think the discussion is needed on this forum) but that’s unrelated to Rainbow Laces.

Besides any of those points, in what way is it not impartial? It’s a game of football, unless you’re refereeing a team of LGBT players vs homophobes, in what way could it possibly impact your impartiality?
 
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WTF thread.
I wear rainbow laces. Because I believe in inclusivity and celebrate diversity - and football still has a long way to go to be a safe space.

If a player accuses me of bias - in relation to my laces, accent, Volvo or music taste - it’s probably at least a bookable offence.
 
Pembroke said:
Because females have a right to dignity, privacy and safety. Stonewall do not support current equalities law. Stonewall support self ID where anybody who identified as female and state their gender identity was female could gain GRC meaning they could access female facilities, and play in female sport.
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Missed all this last night but I don’t understand how your gender critical views should impact your refereeing?

Would you decline to send off a player who called another a tranny? Because the FA has given referees a duty to report and sanction discriminatory language. Regardless of our views on any matters.

that’s what wearing the laces is for me, making sure any player knows I’ll not ignore those slurs which I used to hear weekly as a player.
 
Wear them and don’t worry about opinions on it other than your own and those you are supporting. Some close minded opinions clearly.

I’ll also throw in if you don’t want to wear them as laces then you could perhaps use them as a lanyard. Andre Marriner done this regularly in the EPL
 
Big Cat said:
Black kit, black boots, black laces..... straight laced, like me
I'm there to referee a football match. That's it

Rainbow laces looks daft & amateurish to me
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See this is a dissenting view I can at least understand. I do have a non rainbow laced pair of boots in case I decide it’s going to be an issue at any point.
 
Wearing rainbow laces by definition has nothing to do with bias in the way a referee officiates. In that sense, it's just a non-issue.

Is it problematic as a political statement ? I think 99% of people see wearing rainbow laces as simply showing support for inclusivity, not an endorsement of Stonewall specifically. In the same way, I will happily join in with players taking the knee to show opposition to racism without feeling like it's an endorsement of all the views of the BLM organisation.

But it's not compulsory and it's OK not to wear them for aesthetic reasons or because the link to Stonewall makes you uncomfortable (and plenty of reasonable people, including plenty of gay people, have issues with Stonewall in its current manifestation). But as @Joshref says, that's a complicated issue and not one for a refereeing forum.

Crack on with doing what you feel comfortable doing IMHO and before anyone does it, let's not start attaching lazy labels to people who do or don't choose to wear them.
 
Quarryref said:
Crack on with doing what you feel comfortable doing IMHO and before anyone does it, let's not start attaching lazy labels to people who do or don't choose to wear them.
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Yes I went out of my way to avoid this in here because it isn't the place and no minds will change from whatever discussion is held here on the matter.

Think your overall comment is the right approach
 
For what it's worth, and funnily enough I believe I had this discussion with Big Cat on our game together, I don't think I'd wear them. I fully support the LGBT community, however I'd prefer to be anonymous as a referee. The less I can give people to talk about, the better. Maybe that's me sitting on the fence and not offering the LGBT community the support I should, but at this time, that's how I feel.
I also have no issue with other referees wearing them and I do think the suggestion that they could show impartiality is utterly bizarre.
Edit to add: Equally, if there was a specific match day or weekend where all of football was asked to wear them for support, I would happily join in.
 
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I can’t imagine anything worse than having to re-lace my boots to get the rainbows on. But if anyone fancies buying me a rainbow lanyard, I’m in
 
RefereeX said:
For what it's worth, and funnily enough I believe I had this discussion with Big Cat on our game together, I don't think I'd wear them. I fully support the LGBT community, however I'd prefer to be anonymous as a referee. The less I can give people to talk about, the better. Maybe that's me sitting on the fence and not offering the LGBT community the support I should, but at this time, that's how I feel.
I also have no issue with other referees wearing them and I do think the suggestion that they could show impartiality is utterly bizarre.
Edit to add: Equally, if there was a specific match day or weekend where all of football was asked to wear them for support, I would happily join in.
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That's pretty much where I am at. I wouldn't choose to wear them, but if there was an initiative on any given weekend to do so I happily would.

I'm just struggling to get my head around how anyone thinks that a refereeing wearing them could in any way lead to suggestions that they are less than impartial. The only possible case I can think of is where one of the teams is well known to be LGBT based, i.e. you have to be LGBT to play for them, and even that is at best tenuous.
 
Pembroke said:
1. I would not wear rainbow laces, not because I have an issue with LGB, but I do with T's politics with self ID and women's rights and the equality act.
2. I don't display my support for the Labour party when I ref. Do you for the Tories? Or the Liberals? Or the greens? or UKIP? Or Reform?

Why do PGMOL referees take the knee? Honestly I think some don't know themselves and its easier than to risk being isolated and cancelled for not doing so.

Why do I support kick it out because in general it has remained un-politicised. Every decent person is anti racist.
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You got all that from some coloured laces?

😐
 
My employer hands out rainbow coloured lanyards at work so other colleagues can identify allies should they need to/wish to discuss a matter of concern

Would you demonstrate equal outrage to me and my colleagues because we want to make our place of work more inclusive and feel safe?

By your logic on impartiality (which is absolutely ludicrous) wearing a poppy on football pitches should be stopped, any anti racism support should be stopped and managers should be stopped from wearing prostate cancer charity pins.
 
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