Soccer referees get new app to stamp out abuse and keep them in the game

A pioneering smartphone app could help protect young soccer referees from abusive behaviour — and it’s also being eyed by the AFL.

Soccer referees will be able to blow the whistle on abuse under an Australia-first scheme to be rolled out in Victoria next week.

All first-year referees will tap into technology to register offensive or violent behaviour and track their mental and physical wellbeing in a statewide stand against abuse.

A smartphone app — also being eyed by the AFL — will allow referees to complete a post-match analysis of teams’ conduct and rate their own performance.

Junior referees such as Nicholas Tubby, 17, and Madeleine Dodd, 19, will report abusive behaviour using an app. Picture: David Caird

It will feed into a statewide register monitored by the game’s governing body, which will act when the data shows referees are being unfairly treated or teams and individual players are displaying anti-social behaviour.

Football Victoria and Melbourne tech business RefLive have joined forces to put the app in the hands of those who need it the most.

Football Victoria spokesman Dieter Lehmann said the “number one priority’’ of the push was to protect and retain young referees.

“A lot of codes suffer high attrition of young people that come into the sport and just cop abuse over their decisions,’’ he said.

“It can be from players or supporters and it can see up to 40 per cent of them leave within a year.

“But if we can see young refs constantly being abused we can reach out and put our arms around them.’’

Information entered into the apps by refs will be fed into a statewide data management system.

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It is expected to be rolled out to every soccer referee in the state if it helps curb attacks against officials.

“It happens in all sports — it happens in AFL — but this is an Aussie-first sports approach to try and fix the problem,’’ Mr Lehmann said.

“This could be rolled out to many more refs in other sports.’’

About 400 new soccer referees pick up a whistle in Victoria each year with up to 1400 officials overseeing matches for about 70,000 accredited players.

Football Victoria referee manager Luke Brennan said referee turnover was “one of the biggest issues in football’’ and it was hoped the new system could help curb it.

“It allows us to have real-time data to proactively support first-year referees who are the group most likely to leave due to a negative experience.’’

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