An amateur referee has quit officiating Sunday League games after he received racial abuse and was spat at.
Sky Sports reported that the referee, who was officiating a game in Yorkshire, was threatened, racially abused and spat at after he was forced to abandon the game.
The referee, who asked to be identified with just his first name Dwayne, explained that he had sent a player off for dissent after refusing to leave the pitch but, when the player was walking off the pitch he aimed a racist comment at him.
He said: “I asked the manager to get him to go to the dressing room, but I wasn’t getting anywhere and that’s when I decided to blow for full-time.
“Then that’s when the situation got worse. I had players in my face screaming at me.
Dwayne said that he believed that if the other team was not there, there would have been a video of him getting punched.
“It had from zero to 100 in less than two minutes.
“Walking back to the changing room, I had a racist comment aimed towards me. I heard it and it makes your blood boil.
“The thing that annoyed me the most was that while I was getting changed, I just noticed spit marks on the back of my shirt, which wound me up a lot. What human being spits on people, especially in this day and age now with Covid-19?”
The Chairman of the team whose player allegedly fired the abuse towards Dwayne, Panda FC said they were “appalled” by the accusations and that anyone found guilty of the allegations would not play for the club again.
According to the FA, less than 0.01% of grassroots matches contain an incident of racist abuse, but they have acknowledged that this is still one incident too many.
Racist abuse has been very prominent in football for the past few years, highlighted by the act of ‘taking the knee’ to raise awareness of racial injustice.
FIFA have ordered Hungary to play two games behind closed doors and fined its football association over $216K after the racist behavior of fans during the team's World Cup qualifier vs. England on Sep 2 pic.twitter.com/MFTXQN8iPh
— B/R Football (@brfootball) September 21, 2021
Furthermore, today it was confirmed by FIFA that Hungary has been ordered to play two matches behind closed doors and have been fined $216,000 for the racist abuse directed towards England during their game on September 2.