Teenage referee pleads for body cams after "scary" abuse from men twice his age

Taylor Shaw, 17, said in a video interview (above) it was "scary" taking charge of amateur men's league games due to the "horrendous" insults he has faced from adult teams.

The schoolboy pointed to one sickening instance in his home town of Halifax, where a player screamed in his face "f**k you" during a match.

He said other competitors had made nasty personal attacks on his character - leaving him questioning his ambitions to be a professional official.

Taylor feels the FA is not doing enough to safeguard him and other match officials following multiple incidents of alleged assaults in the grassroots matches.

And while recording equipment is outlawed by the International Football Association Board's 'Laws of the Game', he feels it is needed to clamp down on bad behaviour.

Taylor said: "In no workplace would it be acceptable to get up in somebody's face.

"It's not acceptable anywhere, but on a football pitch, a 40-year-old male can get in the face of a 17-year-old boy and nobody bats an eyelid.

"It's a scary and lonely place because it's you against everybody, and that's how people see a referee. Whereas we turn up, and we are on both teams.

"The FA allows me to referee where I'm still classed as a child and there are 22 adults on that pitch.

"This is their responsibility, and they're not taking responsibility, they're not protecting me. They're not allowing me to protect myself if I can't wear a camera."

An FA spokesperson said a trial of body cameras for referees announced in February 2023 had been extended to cover further regions of grassroots football into 2025.

Taylor's call comes as The Cardiff Referees Association refused to oversee grassroots games after one of their officials was allegedly assaulted in October.

While local league footballing officials in Scotland also reportedly considered strike action in September after a referee was headbutted and punched at a game.

English referee Dave Bradshaw suffered a broken nose, four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a broken collarbone and a concussion at a game in October 2022. He was assaulted after he gave a player a red card in a South Lancashire County game between Platt Bridge and Wigan Rose.

The FA's most recent figures revealed show there were a whopping 1,451 allegations of abuse against referees from 2022 to 2023 in grassroots football in England. The body said 72 of these involved an actual or attempted assault, 391 concerned actual or attempted physical contact and 988 related to threatening officials.

An FA spokesperson said: "We have over 37,000 referees in England, and they are the lifeblood of our game.

"We understand the challenges that some of them face, and we have been very clear that all forms of abuse, whether on or off the pitch, are completely unacceptable.

"While it is only a small minority of people who behave badly to referees, this is still too many, and we will continue to do everything we can to stamp out this behaviour from our game.

"This season, we have introduced a new behaviour improvement programme which will see penalty points accumulations introduced in the grassroots game, identifying the worst offending clubs for incidents of behavioural offences such as dissent and violent conduct, along with poor overall matchday respect scores.

"This builds on the steps taken last season to allow for deductions of league points from clubs that are repeated offenders of serious misconduct.

"Through stronger sanctions, leading innovations and our three-year refereeing strategy, we are determined to tackle this issue and build a safer and more inclusive environment for our match officials to have happy and fulfilling long term experiences as referees."