Referee, Halil Umut Meler, was admitted to a local hospital on Monday night after being punched in the face after the full-time whistle following a 1-1 draw between Turkish sides MKE Ankaragucu and Caykur Rizespor.
Incredibly, the punch was not thrown by an adrenaline-fueled player, nor a drunken fan, but by the owner of MKE Ankaragucu, Faruk Koca. As the referees lined up to shake hands following the match, the enraged owner charged onto the field and planted a closed fist on Meler’s right eye, sending the official to the ground in a heap.
Via Getty Images: Emin Sansar/Anadolu
There, despite the intervention of players, coaches, and fellow officials, other members of the Ankaragucu staff could be seen kicking the helpless referee in the head while on the ground, adding to the horrifying scene.
The Turkish Super Lig has suspended all matches until further notice in response to what’s surely the most egregious act of violence against a referee in recent memory.
While violence against referees is (thankfully) rare these days, criticism and verbal abuse of referees has been a major talking point this season. Tabloids, social media, and on-air punditry have been lit ablaze of late with passionate discussion surrounding the quality of referees at the highest level, with several high-profile errors dominating headlines this fall.
Via Sky News
The question asked over and over again is something along the lines of, “How do these people still have jobs?”. How could this rotating core of officials that we see again and again across Europe’s major leagues get this many decisions wrong and still maintain their status of top-level referees?
The unfortunate answer is simple: there just aren’t that many referees.
When you see incidents like the ones that unfolded on Monday in Türkiye, maybe it’s easy to see why. The referee shortages you may see at the youth level or at the recreational level in your local neighborhood extend all the way up the ladder - from U8’s to the Premier League, we simply don’t have enough officials.
The most commonly cited reason for this shortage is as you’d expect: abuse. People don’t want to get screamed at by parents, players, fans, and coaches all day as their job. Hell, if someone came up to my cubicle and yelled at me for a few hours I probably would’ve quit a while ago.
Via the Daily Star
But, I suppose if I got paid a ton of money to just sit at my desk and get berated for eight hours a day, I’d consider keeping the gig. Everyone’s got a price, right? Unfortunately, this price is rarely met in the case of referees at any level.
While it’s tricky at the youth level given the already-too-high cost of playing soccer in this country, at the highest level you’d be shocked to find how little these referees actually make. In the Premier League, base salaries can range between $46,600 - $84,700, while per game bonuses only add about $1,392 per match. Considering the Premier League rakes in around $7.1 BILLION annually, those figures begin to feel entirely too low considering a referee’s relative importance to the quality of the product.
Now, am I suggesting Darren England should be taking home anything close to Kevin De Bruyne’s $20.6 million salary for 2023? Absolutely not - this game will always be about the players. But, in order for these players to be the stars we want them to be, we need referees performing at a level that don’t detract from the games.
Via Sports Illustrated
If this season of refereeing headlines has taught us anything, it’s that our current strategy of physically assaulting, verbally abusing, and grossly-underpaying match officials has not been a great system for creating elite referees. I can’t imagine why…
Until referee pay increases at all levels, and until abuse of referees is further punished within the laws of the game, it seems unlikely that any of our current gripes surrounding officiating will be alleviated any time soon.
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