‘People swear at me in every match’: Young football referee warns of epidemic of bad behaviour

Match official throws weight behind new campaign designed to tackle trolling & verbal abuse

Ben Shepherd

Ben came in for horrible abuse after a high-profile women's game

Ben loves being a ref despite the trolling and abuse

Irish FA head of refereeing Mike Riley

A young Belfast referee wants to give the red card to abusive behaviour at football matches after he was subjected to disgusting social media trolling following a women’s Irish league game earlier this year.

Irish FA match official Ben Shepherd (21) said the abuse after a high-profile match in June “crossed a line”.

While he accepts passions run high in football, he believes it is time to take a stand against bad behaviour on and off the field.

Irish FA head of refereeing Mike Riley

Ben is backing the IFA’s Catch Yourself On campaign, which is designed to tackle the problem.

When the strategy was launched, keyboard warriors took to social media to claim taking abuse was a referee’s job.

But Ben said: “I think you’ll find it’s not our job. It seems to be ingrained in people to go to football and shout and scream at the referee for 90 minutes.

“Nine games out of 10 it is there. You’d maybe get one game where there is very little, or another where it’s just the usual insults.

“People swear at me at every game. It can be quite tough. To say it doesn’t bother me would be a lie.”

While Ben has come in for sectarian abuse at some matches, he said the onslaught he suffered after the women’s game was the worst yet.

He added: “I didn’t award a penalty to one of the teams. The fans gave me a tough time both at the match and afterwards online.

“There were some really horrible messages on social media.”

Ben came in for horrible abuse after a high-profile women's game

He is