The league is covered in local media by a committee member so it won't be mentioned. Its almost like North Korea.Originally Posted by runinglate
Look at the league website,
2 games down for last Friday night,12 games originally fixed down for yesterday, 6 at 11.30 & 6 at 2.30. No ref down for 2 games, Only 2 games down for next Friday night. Surely then there is enough refs to have 3 on abbey games.
The league is covered in local media by a committee member so it won't be mentioned. Its almost like North Korea.
I agree with some of what you have said, but your last statement of saying if the ref is alright we should all forget about the issue and get on with it. If this goes unpunished what's to stop it happening again?Clubs need to realise their are consequences for their actions. The proposal of three refs on all Abbey games was put to the league 7 weeks ago by the referees, but they point blank refused. So I don't think this proposal will be a solution now, since they resoundly disregarded their proposal. We now as clubs need to take control. The league Committee are our representatives, elected by us. They are supposed to act in the best interests of ALL clubs not just one. We need to tell them what we want. A fair proposal would be for the league to remove the youth team for a period of 12 months. Abbey claim that they have met with the youths team several times over the past few weeks and questioned them over this assault. Nothing has come of this, of course no one will come forward they are young kids, they will not hand over their team mate. If a second player was produced, they probably would get a 12 month ban. So shouldnt the team who clearly know who assaulted the ref be punished as a whole as they are are unwillingly to 'tell on a fellow teammate'. If the second culprit comes forward and admits guilt then the other players' ban would be rescinded and would be free to play football. Is this not a fair compromise? That way Abbey A and B could return to league and All clubs will get to finish their season.
I reckon that all members of the youths team probably cannot be suspended as there is nothing to suspend them for, even if abbey withdraw the youths team they can still play with the As or Bs and the refs would not agree to go back if there was a chance of that happening unless they get linesmen.
Abbey offered to withdraw youths team. They have one game left I believe.
Refs not happy as player is not punished by that. I can see why they don’t agree to that in fairness.
As said above. We are now entering the part of the year where fellas go on holidays etc. To expect team. Especially like us who have nothing at all to play for to remain interested and be able to field a team in the middle of June is crazy.
I don’t see this being resolved this season or next season at this stage
Why not? They are all complicit, they all know who was involved but they will not tell. If they get a ban, this ban would see them ineligible from playing any type of junior soccer I.e. With Abbey A or B. Arent the Youths not part of the junior league??
its Schrodingers Cat - how do you ban somebody for knowing something if they dont admit they know?
I understand your point - punishing the team achieves nothing, their league is over and the players are free to move to another youths team or play at junior level
Banning all of them at the very least punishes any perpetrators but i dont think it would stand up, there should have to be at least an offence for a player to be banned
Just throw Abbeyfeale out.
All age groups and deny entry next year until the 2nd person owns up.
Let them join the Kerry league if they want. They'd be no loss to the Desmond league.
Disappointing behaviour from a once reputable club.
Well that brings us back to the referee who claims there were 2 players involved in the incident. So the real question becomes Do we believe the ref who has told us there were two, or do we believe the club who say there was one? The defense of youths saying they know nothing is a joke. At their first meeting with their own club officials they were asked if anything was seen or if anyone knew anything. None of them came forward with any information. This is what the league told clubs at their information night as they described the sequence of Abbeys own investigation. Then A few days later this player 1 owns up to the two offences. So while they were all at the match and surrounded the ref at the end of the game, they didn't see player 1 do anything when they were originally asked at the first meeting. This brings me back to my original point of not telling on a team mate. Are we expected to believe this, that nobody saw anything? How can the league?
Last edited by DesmondLad; 14/05/2019 at 5:04 PM.
Well said. If they initially claimed they didn’t see anything then suddenly this 1 player comes forward how is it difficult to believe they are hiding a second player.
Abbeyfeale are probably happy to stay quiet and hope other teams get frustrated with the current situation so opinion swings against the refs. Other clubs will then get annoyed at the refs strike, forgetting the bigger issue of a ref being abused.
Last edited by Red_Devil; 14/05/2019 at 5:14 PM.
Facebook page :- Irish Soccer Referees Society Limerick West :- some statement up there outlining the refs side
This is the statement I saw anyway, how many are there?!
https://i.imgur.com/hfY1Soh.jpg
Refs statement from facebook
It is with deep and heartfelt sadness we must issue this statement.
We have waited 8 weeks without commenting in the hope that a resolution could be found. Sadly none to date.
On March 19th following a cup game our member had to endure an unprovoked attack on his person. Firstly as he made his way to the exit gate from the pitch after the game ended he was verbally abused and brushed against by a spectator then a home team player who was in front of the referee turned back and verbally abused him also. He identified this player and showed him a red card. Then in a cowardly act he was punched from behind to his right hand kidney area and as he turned around to see the culprit he was spat on the face from the left hand side. Eventually he made it to his car in the car park and after a while left the ground. Thankfully he was fit to drive despite being in shock for some time and made his way to a Garda station to report the incident. He submitted 3 reports to the Management Committee (MC). 1 spectator assault. 2 red card of player. 3 assault from behind. Our response was to protect all our members by advising them not to referee this club on their own until the culprits were identified and dealt with by the MC, As a way of allowing the club continue to fulfill their fixtures we offered to officiate them as a trio again until the matter was resolved. This action was taken to protect the safety of our members. The club's response was to try to discredit the referee by calling some players "names" and red carding the wrong player. He denied this and was certain he got the correct player for abusing him as the player was in front of him.The MC sent the assault report to the DCU to be heard but was returned to them to deal with as the season had already commenced since the new changes came into force. The MC dealt with reports 1 and 2 and we have no issue with that but the handling of the assault report 3 that is our concern. The club produced the name of a player whom they said had owned up to them that he committed both offences ( punching and spitting). The MC on again reading the referees report agreed that it was feasible that the individual could have committed both offences despite the report saying they came from opposite sides. On receiving this decision we again contacted the MC to state that the referee was clear that he was assaulted by two persons. No resolution was found and eventually it was agreed to hold a meeting on May 7th between members of our committee the league committee and FAI reps. The league again ruled out our suggestion of a trio to get games played and the FAI stance was that the FAI legal dept. had endorsed the league's handling of the report. We have since requested a copy of this endorsement but it has not been forthcoming. We then advised both parties that the assaulted referee had been contacted by the Gardai and informed that the young man named and suspended by the league had gone to the Garda station and put on record that he had committed neither assault. This evidence was dismissed by the FAI reps who insist that the case was dealt with. In the end a proposal was put on the table to carry back to our members to decide on. It was agreed by all to give us 48 hours to call a meeting. The following night the MC decided to hold an information night for the clubs. Why this was done while a proposal was on the table baffles us as they were aware they would have no answer from us for another 24 hours at least. We were not invited to make a statement or have any input to their information night. Led from the top table this turned out to be a referee bashing exercise. Remember a referee was assaulted and a comment from the top table of "if you sneeze now there's a report sent in"was not in he least helpful. Another comment from the top was "we will split the referees branch" which has had the opposite effect. Many delegates made insulting and hurtful remarks about our members. In fact some have come back and written an apology for what they said and we accept that. This anti referee sentiment was fueled from the MC to garnish support for themselves. As you can imagine this was not appreciated by our members at our meeting which was deferred to Friday night where it was decided by all the members to make themselves unavailable to referee Youths and Junior Football in the Desmond Football League until the culprits are found and dealt with by the league. As it stands the MC have 14 names from the match card for the game in question and 2 of those players assaulted a referee so why can it not be dealt with? If we return to referee this club's Youths A or B teams we may be facing the people who assaulted our colleague and we don't believe this to be a safe situation to put our members in.We feel sorry for the clubs awaiting cup finals and seeking promotion as this is not of their making but as we enter the 9th week since the assault a stand has to be made and feel sorry for the senior referees in our branch who may now have retired from Junior football, but we must protect the upcoming young referees or nobody will take up the hobby. We must acknowledge that the club did write to the assaulted referee to apologise albeit some 6 weeks after the event but we acknowledge the apology. The history of our branch will show that we have never been disruptive and always had a good working relationship with the league until that ill-advised information meeting.
Limerick West Branch I.S.R.S.
DesmondLad, can you provide a direct link to where you got this statement because I'm having great difficulty finding it.
Thanks for that!
After reading that statement would you still hold this position?
Fair play to the refs for showing such solidarity. I was told a couple clubs at the meeting raised concerns at how the refs were being treated and one was told he was being selfish as his club were on track for a league win, by an Abbey delegate.
I’ll say it again, do the right thing Abbey, walk away and save the league.
See it's on the leader website now as well,Anyone of the opinion that a new Management committee might be required.
Two options either 3 refs at abbey games or abbey gone from league.. no other option will work at this stage
If they can’t sort it out you have to wonder what’s the point of them being there. However in saying that who else is going to do it. Same faces at agm every year and 90% of them can’t wait to get out the door.
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