Abuse is not a zero-sum game! The case for zero tolerance of match official physical and verbal abuse

Dawson, Peter, Webb, Tom and Downward, Paul (2022) Abuse is not a zero-sum game! The case for zero tolerance of match official physical and verbal abuse. European Journal of Sport Science, 22 (3). pp. 417-424. ISSN 1746-1391

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Abstract

Emergent research has investigated the impact of abuse on the decision of match officials to leave their sport. The existing literature is largely descriptive and qualitative. Based on large surveys of football referees in France and the Netherlands, this paper investigates the factors that are associated with the verbal and physical abuse of the referees and also the association of this abuse with the intentions of referees to quit officiating. The associations are investigated by estimating the marginal effects from bivariate probit and probit models respectively. Bivariate probit estimation reveals a strong correlation between each form of abuse. Both, unsurprisingly, are also positively associated with years of experience of referees. Probit estimation reveals that both forms of abuse as well as intimidation from refereeing certain teams are associated with an increased consideration of referees to quit. As increased intention to quit is also associated with the experience of the referee it is likely that the effect of abuse on referee considerations of quitting increase through time. The main conclusions are that the alternative forms of abuse are not zero-sum and both should be targeted by governing bodies to reduce the decline in number of football referees. The data show that support of referees, for example through mentoring, can offset stated intentions to quit.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding: This work was supported by UEFA, Switzerland.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	match officials,intention to quit,physical abuse,verbal abuse,orthopedics and sports medicine,physical therapy, sports therapy and rehabilitation ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2700/2732
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2021 23:47
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 07:40
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/79711
DOI:	10.1080/17461391.2021.1881619

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