Talking to the ref

Cracking game here yesterday which finished Flamengo 4-3 Bahia. Flamengo went 1 up and then had a player sent off after 9 minutes. They then went 2-0 up before falling behind 2-3. They then made the come back - all with 10 players for 81 minutes of the game (I don’t think we managed a shot with our one man advantage against Fulham).

Anyway Gabriel was sent off (straight red) for allegedly saying “go f*** yourself “ to the ref. I’ve never played football at any decent level and so I was wanting the opinion of those that had. Was that an unusually harsh decision or normal?

I’ve seen many players mouthing “f*** off” to the ref in the PL (especially that horrible mackem who plays for Liverpool) and so I was surprised at the referee’s explanation for the sending off yesterday.

I think the general feeling is that whilst most refs will 'accept' swearing in a non-personal sense, e.g. 'ah, for fuck's sake', etc, if it's directed at them then that becomes a different matter. It's funny you should raise this now because we were talking about exactly this on our Friday Zoom-one of the lads is a ref and he said that if anyone directs language at him, very much like the example you gave, he'll send them straight off.

I know some people don't like the comparison but rugby does it properly-the players call the ref 'Sir' and if they talk back then penalties are moved 10 yards further forward and refs are shown a lot more respect than in football.

I seem to remember years ago an inmate at a prison in the UK changed his name by deed poll to "Sir" so the prison officers had to call him by that name. XD

I had my ref's badge for a couple of years - only actually reffed a few inter-university games when I was injured and couldn't play (I was a goalkeeper and twice broke fingers, six in all!).

I agree with Zippity. I only once sent a bloke off for that - his team was getting hammered, but he insisted on moaning that the sixth or seventh goal was offside. I tried explaining to him that the scorer got the ball in his own half, but he told me "Go f*** yourself".

Mind you - one game I was in goal in a ***** promotion game. 2-2 in the last minute and our centre half went to clear a cross. The ball skewed off his boot and shot up and hit the top of his arm. Ref gave a pen (this was pre-VAR and in those days the handball rule said it had to be "hand to ball").
Our bloke just looked at the ref and said "You are f***ing joking mate". Off he went.

I saved the pen and we won the league and promotion. Which was nice!

Don't know where the ***** before promotion came from!

I'd agree with Zip, its the direction of it.

My grandad reffed when he was younger (had to be police escorted out of Milwal v Luton game XD) and he's said he'd never abide swearing at him.