A&H

Two Sin Bins

JBeil

JBeil

Active Member
Level 5 Referee
Centre of the park, two players jump up for the ball. I see yellow has his hands on blue's shoulders, and he appears to win the ball by holding his opponent down on the ground. Simple FK.

Yellow turns to me and shouts "**** OFF!"

Sin bin, off you pop. His team are winning this game at a canter anyway.

Just before full-time, give a corner. Goalkeeper shouts, at a similar volume, "OH, **** OFF REF!"

Sin bin again.

Queue lots of 'oh you're busy, you shouldn't be refereeing, you can't handle it" - I was tempted to send off the ringleader for that one as well but I couldn't be arsed with twenty seconds to go. After the game one of the players who went off tells me 'I think you'd find the game flows much better, and you'll enjoy it more, if you just have a bit of banter'. He seemed to be dead certain that swearing at me was fine because 'pashun'. If I tried that in my other sports (kendo, badminton, and occasionally rugby) I'd be cleared off quick as you like (and in kendo, I'd probably get a walloping next time we were at training!). Strange, as apart from one team whinging it wasn't much of a heated match at all. Oh well, one more down. I got the email through about county finals so I can't be doing that badly!
 
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At face value thats two red cards. Thats abusive, not, dissent

dissent, is demonstrating a disagreement

telling you to feck off, is simply abuse.
 
Anubis said:
At face value thats two red cards. Thats abusive, not, dissent

dissent, is demonstrating a disagreement

telling you to feck off, is simply abuse.
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Context is everything, if you give a decision, F off ref, might actually be a disagreement, it's not necessarily abuse by default.

I am certain that 99.99% of refs are not sending players off everytime they are told to F off.

Should we be, is another debate...
 
JamesL said:
Context is everything, if you give a decision, F off ref, might actually be a disagreement, it's not necessarily abuse by default.

I am certain that 99.99% of refs are not sending players off everytime they are told to F off.

Should we be, is another debate...
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of course.

Shouting, feck off ref, smells of red. The volume used, along with the direct reference to, ref, would largely see a departure on my pitch.
 
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I'm struggling to think of a context in which "OH F*** OFF REF" is not abusive. Maybe there is one. Maybe footballing cultures are different in different parts of the country.

I can't remember the last time I dismissed for OFFINABUS, certainly not this season, so it doesn't happen often, but I would dismiss for that.
 
I’m at the opinion that ‘F off’ is yellow, and ‘F you ref’ would be a red. F off sounds like a frustrated reaction to the decision so would be happy to go dissent but the moment you target and name it towards me, I’m taking that as abuse

I’ve had people say it’s ‘passion’ to me before but I’ve never been so passionate towards something I feel the need to swear at it
 
Trip said:
I'm struggling to think of a context in which "OH F*** OFF REF" is not abusive. Maybe there is one. Maybe footballing cultures are different in different parts of the country.

I can't remember the last time I dismissed for OFFINABUS, certainly not this season, so it doesn't happen often, but I would dismiss for that.
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For me, the greatest determinant of the course of action, as well as the words spoken, is the manner in which they are spoken.

If, for example, the player moves towards me, is looking at me, fixes eye contact and shouts "f*** off ref" he is going for an early bath and I think this is likely to be expected by the footballing community at large. This is clearly intended to be OFFINABUS.

If, for example, shouts the same words, but he is some distance away, not looking directly at me etc, I would be more tempted to caution (sin bin) with a clear public admonishment. I think a red in such circumstances would not be conducive to the maintenance of full match control.
 
I'm afraid it's engrained in UK adult football. For me this is what the sin bin is brought in for. Somebody gets frustrated and tells me to f*** off then its an automatic sin bin. Context is everything and all that but I'm not offended by that, it's somebody behaving like a spoilt child and they can miss 10 mins of the game they want to play (like a spoilt child). If the f*** off is followed by something else beginning with a C for example then thats going to be a red. I think its different especially for those of us that played in the local Sunday Leagues etc, especially the South Manchester Sunday League I played in for years. Everyone is telling everyone else to f*** off constantly. We can go on about the rights and wrongs of that but that's how it was. It was like that on the pitch and then everyone's drinking together afterwards. Maybe most of that's confined to the past but it's just how it was. If you sent a player off for saying f*** off youd have an awful lot of reds!

I just don't get offended by anything on a football pitch directed at me. I do see it as an opportunity to deal with these people though so if someone says it then it's my opportunity to bang in a sin bin yellow and then its usually plain sailing for the rest of the game (or at least the last few mins when a team is getting hammered!). There are loads of OFFINABUS things which we all know are unacceptable an need to be dealt with via the red card, but unless its someone using the C word or literally screaming in my face then go and have 10 mins over there and if you do it again you'll find yourself removed.

Each to their own and you're all managing people the way you see fit. I manage 20 blokes in a Quarry every day and have done for 13 years, I'm afraid it's how alot of people communicate.

I'm not there to tell adults right or wrong, I'm their to manage a football match using the LOTG, 2 cards and my own personality, I have nothing else in my arsenal.
 
Trip said:
I'm struggling to think of a context in which "OH F*** OFF REF" is not abusive.
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Here is one. "F off ref.... that was a beauty of a decision. How did you manage to see that". Not even dissent.

Context, context, context. There are some demography where you hardly hear a sentence without the f word somewhere in there.

I have never liked the word charts or advice that say this word or phrase means this card etc. No words mean anything unless you are on the field of play and can take all other factors into consideration.
 
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To answer the various questions above:

- Men's sunday football
- The first one, the player committed the foul, heard the whistle, turned to me and shouted '**** off' loud enough that the whole park could hear. No room for maneouvre there, even if I wanted to do him a favour.
- Second one, as I signal for a corner kick, the goalkeeper says, quote 'OH, **** OFF REF' at a similar volume. Everyone's heard it, I've already set down my limit, I'd be wrong if I hadn't then applied the sanction.
- Potential third one - player starts grumbling at me, without shouting, and at that point there's twenty seconds left, so I'm happy to just let him grumble; strictly I might have had a case but once I told him to leave it he settled down, so that seems like a solution.
 
As others have said, how something is said can be just as important (if not more) as the words used.

- A player quietly saying "f*** off" in frustration after a decision goes against them/their team might get ignored, or receive some words of advice about their choice of vocabulary.
- A situation like the OP where the players have shouted it at you after you've penalised them would most likely result in me sending them for a 10 minute trip to the naughty step.
- A player getting in my face and shouting it at me would be going for an early shower.

As for the 'banter' comment, I can have plenty of banter with players during the game, but the one who's just shouted "f*** off" at me is going to be last on my list of people to be having a laugh with at that point! I'm sure he'd have been just as willing to engage in banter if you had just shouted at him to "f*** off" 😂
 
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