Crackdown on school kids sniping at referees

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Lippy children have been handed a "shut up or ship out" message as ASB College Sports bosses come down heavily on verbal abuse aimed at match officials.

College Sport chief executive Manoj Daji, mindful of the success of the new card system used in hockey, is determined to work on stamping out the unsavoury practice of players abusing officials, whether qualified or acting in a voluntary capacity.

"The expectation is that no warnings be given for a first instance of verbal abuse in secondary school matches and culprits should be immediately sidelined. Any second instance by the same player should result in permanent removal from the fixture concerned."

Under hockey's new card system, a green card (for a minor offence) earns an automatic two-minute suspension. More serious offences (yellow cards) incur a minimum five minutes on the sideline and can, for serious incidents, result in suspension for the match.

Most sports have a disciplinary system, but few have a cooling-off period.

Mr Daji said the hockey example had been working and could be adopted by other sports.

"While most sports already have a mechanism in place to deal with such incidents we are encouraging officials to use it. For those sports which don't, we want them to adopt appropriate measures," he said.

"It is unacceptable that these officials, most of whom are volunteers, should be subjected to abuse. "We don't necessarily want to ban players straight off but we do want to send them to the sideline" to cool off.

Mr Daji said the Auckland Secondary Schools Heads Association wanted people to remember that organised sport for youth would not happen without these officials.

The stand was being taken not so much in light of recent reports of such abuse, rather to ensure clear guidelines were drawn up.

"We have 40,000 secondary school pupils involved in winter sport - and 65,000 overall - so it is easy to see just how many people are needed to officiate. They deserve respect and this is one way of ensuring they get it.

"We started by taking a similar stance with spectators a couple of years ago. This is just another step. If we get it right, these kids can then go on to adult sport with the right attitude."

For sports wanting to adopt a similar code of conduct as being taken by hockey, College Sport will supply the necessary cards.