Abstract
Aggressive behavior towards football referees is becoming increasingly common, and as a result we are getting used to it and coming to see it as an inevitable and intrinsic element of football matches. Spectators, players and coaches are all prone to take this view. This article studies how the types of aggression shown by these three groups towards the referee are related to one another, and how they are perceived by the referee, in amateur football. For this purpose, the phenomenon was assessed, using an ad-hoc form, both by an expert and by the referee, in 119 regional and youth football matches in the city of Valencia and surrounding municipalities. We analysed the data using a loglinear model, which enabled us to establish that from the referee’s perspective pairs of the above-mentioned groups influenced each other regardless of the attitude of the third group. On the other hand, departing from the traditional idea that aggressive behaviour by one of the groups determines the behaviour of the other two, the analysis of the expert’s opinions on the attitudes of the three groups led us to a model in which their respective actions were independent of one another.
Highlights
RESUMEN El comportamiento agresivo hacia los árbitros de fútbol se está acrecentando de manera tal que como resultado estamos habituándonos a él y viéndolo como un elemento inevitable e intrínseco de los partidos de fútbol
As we indicated in the introduction, our main objective is to study the prevalence of, and the possible relationships between, the various types of aggressive behaviour shown by players, coaches and spectators in football matches
This study challenges the idea that aggressive behaviours of players, coaches and spectators towards the referee are related, since the result we obtained from the data in the record sheets of the matches analysed was that their presence is independent, whereas in the referee’s view this is not so, which coincides with the traditional opinion in the football world
Summary
The data obtained from the 119 record sheets provide two views, that of the observer who filled in the sheet and that of the referee For the former, we analysed the maximum aggressiveness (MA) towards the referee detected in the spectators, coaches and players, regardless of whether it was a correct decision, an error or a “grey-area” decision. The result of cross-tabulating the three variables for MA and OR is shown in Tables 3 and 4. In both tables we can see a large number of empty cells: 11 out of 27 for MA and 7 out of 27 for OR.
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