The referee takes a shot...

How much control to referees have over players nowadays? They certainly come in for an awful lot of abuse from players, managers and coaches alike, at all levels from the Premiership to Sunday pub football to junior football. Referees don't appear to command the respect of players, and this is plain to see in nearly every match we see on TV or attend in the flesh. You don't have to be a proficient lip-reader to appreciate the kind of language that refs are confronted with. This is a big issue, and maybe one for serious debate in a later post...

But in the meantime, let me tell you about a referee in Malaysia who had a unique way of dealing with troublesome players. This is true story from an amateur match in the country last month.

It all started when the referee showed a red card to a player. The said player's team mates responded by crowding around and jostling the man in the middle. It all got rather aggressive. At which point the referee obviously felt he was losing a grip on the game. The man in black was a policeman, and his reaction was to pull his gun out and fire off a couple of shots of live ammunition into the air.

This had the desired effect. The crowd of players dispersed quicker than you could say "fair decision ref" and the official had no more trouble from either side for the remainder of the game.

The after effect? Five players were arrested for "rioting" and the referee was taken into custody by his fellow officers and charged with misuse of firearms. The local police chief of the Johor state in Malaysia went on record thus "We are investigating as to whether the policeman was justified in taking out his firearm and discharging it, and also why he had it with him during the match".

Still, it did the trick. Maybe I'll give the Referees' Association a call...