How the constant comments from the sidelines and the Twitter timelines can challenge the referee mentally
It’s become a rare occurrence that if by the end of the match week, we are not analysing a controversial decision made by a referee, or listening to someone on TalkSport discuss the controversial decision.
Since the introduction of VAR, it has become almost obligatory to review every decision a referee makes and post our own thoughts about it online.
But as ex-Premier League ref Jon Moss, 53, says, “it’s unlikely fans are going on Twitter to write something good about the referee.”
Moss is no stranger to some of the harshest byproducts that come with being a Premier League referee.
When he sent off Jamie Vardy in Leicester’s clash with West Ham in 2016 and gave what were deemed as two controversial penalties, he found himself on the front and back pages of the papers, and says even how hard it was for his family to see him under that kind of pressure.
It wasn’t until Sky’s Monday Night Football came up with an unlikely hero in Jamie Carragher to turn the heat down on Moss, when he went through the decisions alongside Cesc Fàbregas and argued that he was right to make them. “Carragher really changed the whole narrative and I could see the relief on my family’s faces whilst we were watching it.”
A narrative that couldn’t be changed however was after Moss’s last professional game, when he was subjected to criticism in the 2022 Championship Play-Off final.
Alongside his record shop in Headingley being trashed by Huddersfield fans, which Moss claims “had undone all the work we had done on the shop in one weekend”, he also faced some death threats.
Although Moss suggests that the PGMOL responded excellently to the issue, with boss Mike Riley being a character “who very much puts the referees first”, and the Premier League and the EFL using their ‘disaster recovery’ policy which provided security outside his shop and offered to move he and his family to a hotel, the consequences of this type of abuse can be detrimental to one’s mental health.
Psychology student Shannon Kilburn describes the effects of the constant slander that referees are victims to; “the prolonged stress can lead to the onset of a variety of mental health disorders and these disorders may cause inadequate daily functioning, never mind performing in a highly intense environment like officiating a football match.”
Alongside the positive response of the forces above Moss, he suggests that there are other efforts to minimising abuse by altering the way referees are perceived, with the likes of PGMOL communications officer Ben Campbell encouraging referees to create social media accounts to reveal their human side to fans.
Ex-PGMOL boss Keith Hackett reiterates those progressive steps in the training and referee associations available to officials to keep out any form of abuse which he considers a “worry”.
Whilst we may never find a culture in our game that is ridded of referee abuse, it is important that we consider the alarming effects and the steps required for some means of advancement.
