Fair Play Release | 2025

With the majority of senior club football starting this weekend, and as we have done in recent years, we felt it was timely to remind all our clubs and members about the need to play our game with respect and in the spirit of fair play. We need your help as clubs and schools to manage this and so would respectfully ask the following:

• Keep an eye out and support our sideline behaviour campaigns in your region. You will see our Positive Vibes Only campaign which will be communicated prior to the start of the junior season. This is an across code program aimed at side-line behaviour in junior sport, although the same message certainly applies in the senior game. The principles of Positive Vibes Only focus firmly on the reason we play sport, which is to have fun, get some exercise and enjoy the comradery of all involved in the game. Yes, winning is an important part of the game and we all enjoy that, but it should not come at the expense of poor on or off field behaviour towards the opposition or match officials.
   
• We ask that the message is clear from your club to your members that you will not tolerate poor on field behaviour, particularly dissent or abuse of match officials and overly aggressive, abusive or discriminatory comments, gestures or play towards your opposition. We need you to help set the tone with this and ensure your members know you mean business. It has been fantastic to see some of our club’s act in a very proactive way around this and we would encourage others to do the same.
  Where we witness or have substantiated reports of dissent and/or abuse of match officials (from players, coaches or supporters), we will be acting swiftly and firmly. We make no excuse for this and would ask that your players are aware of this now rather than finding out the hard way. If a player is dismissed for “abuse of a match official” they can expect at least minimum four playing days suspension and so we would ask that players are aware of this also.

• The subject of referees comes up every year and the message from clubs is the same in that they want more referees. Central Football, and our Referee Development Manager Matt Wallace are working as hard as possible across the Federation to attract more officials to the game and improve the ones we have. The sad fact is that many stop refereeing, or don’t ever start, simply because they do not want to spend a Saturday afternoon being harassed by 22 players for 90 minutes. We constantly find players expecting FIFA quality referees in local grassroots football. The facts are that in most cases, you will find referees of grassroot quality and fitness matched with players of the same level. Our referees do their best but make mistakes from time to time, just like all players do.

On the same vein, we would ask that coaches and team support staff are also reminded of the expectations around their behaviour and that they lead their players by example.

The area of side-line and on-field behaviour is a serious issue in our game that cannot be solved by Central Football or a few well-meaning clubs only. It needs complete support and a no tolerance policy on abuse, discrimination and overly aggressive behaviour from ALL clubs.

We look forward to your support around this and if you need any help in getting this message to your members, please ask and we will be more than happy to help where every possible.

Best wishes for the season and thanks again for your support.
 

Regards,

Darren Mason
Central Football CEO

Article added: Thursday 03 April 2025