The vice president of the Irish Soccer Referees Society, Sean Slattery, has said that his organisation will not supply referees to a specific Dublin club for any games in the near future after a referee was assaulted last weekend.
Mr Slattery told Newstalk Breakfast that the assault of the referee in his sixties was the fifth such attack since Christmas in Dublin alone.
The experienced referee was surrounded on the pitch by disgruntled players and when he tried to leave he was kicked, eventually the opposition team stepped in to prevent further assault, he added.
Another incident in January has still not been investigated, said Mr Slattery, the process needed to be “speeded up” as the Referees Society had told an Oireachtas committee earlier this year.
Mr Slattery said he hoped that the zero tolerance approach and refusal of referees to provide services would get the message across.
The latest incident had “really hit hard” as the referee involved was well known and had been involved in the game for a long time.
When asked what the team involved would do now that the society would not provide referees, Mr Slattery pointed out that his organisation represented 80 per cent of referees, and he did not know what “non society” referees would do.
It was important that incidents like this not happen again, he said.
