Each weekend still 25 rough incidents in Dutch amateur football

The Dutch FA has tried to diminish excessiveness on pitches in amateur football by punishing harder. Totally 200 people got banned for 2-10 years, 105 teams were ruled out of their competition and 74 persons may never play football anymore. That only happened five times in total in the seasons before, stated the FA.

Secretary of Health & Sport Edith Schippers. Press photo provided by Rijksoverheid.nl

The number of rough incidents (f.e. beating up a referee or kicking a player who’s lying on the ground) has decreased from 30 each weekend to 25, after years of increase. “It goes the right way again”, says Secertary of Health & Sports Edith Schippers, who started a campaign for a safer sports climate last year. “But we are not there yet.”

Prevention measures and education had no effect, stresses KNVB chairman Michael van Praag. Punishing harder was the only solution. Players and referees also have to explain the situations more often personally and not only on paper.

Van Praag says that clubs did not think the FA was so serious about severe punishing. Until winter break. “In the second half of the season, I saw that club were starting to weigh something carefully after their club was named in connection with an incident in the media.” Clubs changed their sanctioning policies and screen new members.

Most incidents happen in West 2, the region I officiate in. “A region with cities like The Hague and Rotterdam which have more poor neighbourhoods than other parts of the Netherlands”, says the regional FA chief Peter Oskam, former professional referee. “People there are incline to think faster: I don’t care.” Oskam thinks he can change that attitude with help of the clubs. In his opinion it’s a good idea that clubs can prevent themselves from being ruled out of their competition if they tell who were the perpetrators during an incident. “We are going to talk with each club, because everey excess is one too much.”

Oskam was a bit jealous when he watched other sports than football at the Olympics and the respect for the referees. “Ofcourse there’s discussion in hockey matches when someone does not agree with a referee’s decision”, says he. “Sport is emotion, but you’ll never see someone even touching a referee. That’s what we need in amateur football, but therefore a different sports climate is necessary.”

Referees in the media (week 41)

‘Referees in the media’ will be published each Monday on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading.

Referees deserve it once to get some extra attention in the spotlights.

States the Dutch FA (KNVB) because of the week of the referee in the Netherlands.

“I play a bit with the referee.”

Admits Bosnian player Miralem Pjanic before the match against France after accusations from French defender Adil Rami that Pjanic is a cheat.

“There now seems to be two types of officials in the game, those who want to be the centre of attention and those who prefer to stay anonymous.”

Says Andrew Cole, journalist at The National, an English newspaper in Abu Dhabi.

“I think the goal line can be easily controlled by two additional assistant referees.”

Uefa referee boss and former top referee Pierluigi Collina doesn’t want goal-line technology.

Gözübüyuk breaks all Dutch referee records

The Dutch Soccer Association has today announced which referees will be promoted after this season. Serdar Gözübüyuk will be the only new referee on the senior list, the highest level in the Netherlands. He got a contract for three years.

The 25-year old referee is the first with foreign roots who promotes from the junior list. He was on the second level since 2009 and will replace Ben Haverkort, who had to quit the top list. Gözübüyuk holds two youngest referee records: he made his professional debut on the 10th of March in 2008 at the age of 23 and his first match on the highest level was 2nd May 2010 at the age of 24.

Other promotions
Dennis Higler and Rogier Honig were promoted from the Referee Masterclass Group (3rd level) to the Junior Group. Assistants Charl Schaap en Hessel Steegstra step up to the Senior Group. Joost Mulder and Joost van Zuilen to the Junior AR Group.