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On the pitch Delfina Dimoski has faced rape threats, death threats and verbal abuse — and even after finishing her day refereeing football games she has been stalked and harassed on social media for the decisions she makes.
Key points:
- Capital Football is moving to curb referee abuse
- A female referee reports receiving rape threats, being stalked
- Football in Canberra aims to attract more female referees
Constant abuse, in her 11 years as a referee, has given her a thick skin, but in recent seasons violent threats have left her scared to do her job, and made her consider quitting the game she loves.
"Sadly for me I was targeted based on my gender and my ethnicity, with some quite vulgar insults," she said.
"'Get back in the kitchen', 'women don't belong in men's football'."
But the abuse did not stay on the pitch, or come solely from the players. She has also been screamed at by coaching staff and supporters.
"I've been followed and I've been threatened, not only in person and in matches, but on social media," she said.
"I was quite shaken, it led me to the point where I wanted to leave being a football referee.
"It's quite difficult to process why someone would say that to you when you are just participating in a sport that you love."
Driving women out of the game
Ms Dimoski said the gendered abuse made it hard to attract female referees in Canberra, where Capital Football governs competition.
She said being an often-unpopular voice on the field was difficult enough, regardless of gender.
"Sadly for women, as we are already a minority within a minority, it is very challenging," she said.
And she said it was not only hard to get women into officiating, but also to keep them once they were in.
"It is quite difficult for us to retain our female referees," she said.
"We recently surveyed our members and 76 per cent of our members said the reason why women are leaving is because of the abuse that they are copping."
In a bid to attract more female referees, a women's only course is being run by Capital Football, which will make 27 participants fully qualified free of charge.
Ms Dimoski will be part of the process, but said education was key to changing behaviour and keeping referees in the game.
"Educating players that it's not okay to behave like this," she said.
"It's not acceptable down the street, so why is it acceptable on the pitch?"
Setting an example for the next generation
After 11 years as a referee, Alex McConachie has seen and heard of all kinds of abuse.
He now chairs the referees advisory committee and also referees in local competitions, but he repeatedly sees young referees leave the job because of the behaviour of coaches and spectators.
"We lose referees to our game because of incidents that shouldn't be happening," he said.
Alex said he believed younger players were being set a bad example by some of the behaviour they saw around them.
"We saw last year, in particular, that coaches were an issue. We saw coaches setting a poor example for their players," he said.
"Players learn these behaviours from their coaches."
New year, new rules
Before last season's finals, referees had enough, saying the abuse had reached breaking point.
About 40 referees attended two meetings where they aired their grievances.
"Last season there was a heightened percentage of abuse claims against referees that went through Capital Football," Ms Dimoski said.
"The refereeing body engaged actively with Capital Football and basically said there will need to be a change."
Now there will be.
A Capital Football report into referees released on Friday will see new recruits get more support on and off the pitch.
Referees will be able to access a welfare officer to talk about their experiences on the job, as well as a club official for on-field support.
"It think it's a massive step forward, a central point for referees to contact someone," Ms Dimoski said.
"If they've been abused on a weekend, they can pick up a phone and basically call someone straight away who will be there to listen and help support them through the process."
Punishments have also been introduced into the men's and women's National Premier League for dissent towards referees by players and coaches.
Coaching staff can also now receive yellow and red cards, while players can be sent to the 'sin-bin' for 10 minutes for abusing referees. Second-time offenders will be sent off.
Capital Football Chief Executive Phil Brown said he hoped the changes would help attract and keep referees.
"If you look at the data analysis for why referees leave the game, the top reasons were always the verbal abuse that they receive from players or coaches," he said.
"Creating a welcoming environment to try to help us recruit and retain referees, in particular female referees who have been leaving the game at a higher ratio than the males."
Topics: soccer, sport, canberra-2600, act, australia
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