Examples of violence are rare, but the problem of overly aggressive parents needs to be dealt with.
We have to keep trying to get the message across that it has a really negative impact as it ruins the enjoyment for children and it’s not helping their learning and development.
The only person they should be listening to is their coach, who has probably gone through at least 30 hours if not a lot more of training to support those kids. I’d urge parents to think about what is in the best interested of your child and that is that they go and enjoy their football and have a referee who is protected and supported.
There’s no indication to suggest that the situation is getting worse, but that said it’s a continual process of supporting clubs and leagues to get across the ethos of the Football Association’s Respect campaign and make sure we provide the right learning environment for young players to enjoy the game and develop.
We also have to protect our referees, which is absolutely fundamental. We’ve gone up to 28,000 referees now but we need to support and protect them, so it’s ongoing work.
There’s a new strategy coming out, which will be a chance for us to draw breath on it and ask what we can do going forward to keep driving home the message and supporting clubs to put the children’s enjoyment and learning first and let the coaches do their work.
We’ve just been through a big reorganisation at the FA to invest more money into the grassroots game and thinking about how we’re going to support and invest in grassroots and this will involve reviewing Respect.
It’s time assess how we refresh the campaign and the programme to give it the biggest impact we can to get those messages out there, which is all part of looking ahead to the next four years.