WHEN I came into this role, I was already quite aware that referees are almost burdened with Respect being their role and responsibility.
If you’ve got a coach who behaves badly over a number of weeks, it tends to transpire onto the parents and they think that’s how you can act. In turn, that transpires onto the pitch and then the referee has a really difficult job trying to manage everybody – bearing in mind, their job is to manage what’s on the pitch.
So the trigger actually comes from the leader. The positive coach is the one who, in youth football, g...