The FA is to test a behaviour campaign across England over the next six months that could lead to miscreant parents on the touchline costing their teams points. Ian Blanchard, the FA’s head of national referee development, is finalising a programme that will be used in eight counties from January in an attempt to penalise those who fail to comply to a code of conduct.

The trial will incorporate roped-off areas for parents, captains being placed in charge of communication with officials and referees filing postmatch online questionnaires to regulate the behaviour of coaches, spectators and players.

The switch from mini-soccer to 11-aside, usually at under-11 level, with the introduction of offside being left to nonqualified home-team referee’s assistants, is recognised to be when flashpoints arise on the touchline.

Dissent on the touchline instils fear into the young players. With league tables being published in the local press by this stage, the competitive parents channel their angst over an unjust decision into a greater desire to win the match. Technical development is forgotten.

“Without a doubt touchline tension does have an impact on everyone involved in the game,” Blanchard said. “I’ve seen it many times where players’ heads go down and it has an impact on the ref, who suddenly becomes indecisive and can’t cope with parents offering abuse. This is why Brian Barwick [the FA chief executive] has stepped in and said we need, as a governing body, to do something about this.”

With 25,0000 registered referees in this country, Blanchard emphasises that encouraging more referees into the game is enough of an issue without making their Sunday mornings even more difficult. Still an active referee himself, he asks his assistants on a Sunday morning to give minimal decisions, usually limited to whether the ball is out of play.

“If we don’t do something about it now, things will only get worse,” he said. “It’s about changing people’s perceptions and everyone has to buy into this scheme around changing people’s behaviour.”

To this end, Blanchard wants the campaign, provisionally entitled Respect, to be as widespread as possible. “We are going to trial this at under-10s, under-16s and open age,” he said. “We have already got county football associations saying they know it does work. We are planning to trial it until the end of the season and we have university experts who will do evaluation and monitoring along the way. At the end of season, we’ll evaluate, modify and roll it out nationally.

“If we still have adverse behaviour, the disciplinary department are looking at the potential of deduction of points across the board. If you’re not going to finish first but third, that might be one way of addressing the behaviour issue.”

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