“Go and Wash up!”: Gender Violence in Female Refereeing and Its Media Coverage in Brazil and Spain

Abstract

Violence in sports has the greatest impact in the media, especially on television. In the case of refereeing, although there are studies that have specifically addressed violence, those performed on female referees have not had the same repercussions. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to analyse the media coverage of violence against female referees in Brazil and Spain. In parallel, its intention is to reflect the perceptions of female referees in this respect. The methodology employed combined case studies with critical discourse analysis, based on news items and focus groups with female referees. The results reveal that gender violence against female referees is the most widespread type of aggression. Moreover, they highlight the sensationalist nature of the TV coverage of the phenomenon through the incorporation of visual and audio resources. Lastly, the findings of this study show how the prominence that this type of violence has achieved in the media has ended up eclipsing the recognition of the work of female referees.