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“The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping

Referees are essential participants in the sport of football. They are responsible for enforcing the rules and achieving the necessary impartiality for the matches. Referees are often target of hostile reactions from fans, players, and coaches. However, few studies have focused on these experiences...

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Autores principales: Devís-Devís, José, Serrano-Durá, José, Molina, Pere
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8113635/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33995216
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.656437
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author Devís-Devís, José
Serrano-Durá, José
Molina, Pere
author_facet Devís-Devís, José
Serrano-Durá, José
Molina, Pere
author_sort Devís-Devís, José
collection PubMed
description Referees are essential participants in the sport of football. They are responsible for enforcing the rules and achieving the necessary impartiality for the matches. Referees are often target of hostile reactions from fans, players, and coaches. However, few studies have focused on these experiences and the strategies they use to manage them. In order to fill this gap, a qualitative interview-based study was developed to explore the experiences of a group of football referees (four males and four females) on aggression, violence, and coping. A thematic analysis was developed combining inductive and deductive processes. Results indicated that the most frequent aggressions experienced were verbal abuse. Most of the aggressions from spectators were of a sexist nature. When aggressions were considered normal by referees, symbolic violence emerged. Racist aggressions were directed to the two Moroccan participants. Problem and emotional-focused coping strategies were identified. The two most common referee responses to coaches’ and players’ verbal abuse were penalties and send-off calls. Smiling and not considering insults as a personal matter were two emotional-focused coping strategies used toward spectator aggressions. Implications for the referees’ job and well-being as well as the quality of football competitions were highlighted to reduce aggressions and violence and to help referees to cope with hostile behaviors.
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spelling pubmed-81136352021-05-13 “The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping Devís-Devís, José Serrano-Durá, José Molina, Pere Front Psychol Psychology Referees are essential participants in the sport of football. They are responsible for enforcing the rules and achieving the necessary impartiality for the matches. Referees are often target of hostile reactions from fans, players, and coaches. However, few studies have focused on these experiences and the strategies they use to manage them. In order to fill this gap, a qualitative interview-based study was developed to explore the experiences of a group of football referees (four males and four females) on aggression, violence, and coping. A thematic analysis was developed combining inductive and deductive processes. Results indicated that the most frequent aggressions experienced were verbal abuse. Most of the aggressions from spectators were of a sexist nature. When aggressions were considered normal by referees, symbolic violence emerged. Racist aggressions were directed to the two Moroccan participants. Problem and emotional-focused coping strategies were identified. The two most common referee responses to coaches’ and players’ verbal abuse were penalties and send-off calls. Smiling and not considering insults as a personal matter were two emotional-focused coping strategies used toward spectator aggressions. Implications for the referees’ job and well-being as well as the quality of football competitions were highlighted to reduce aggressions and violence and to help referees to cope with hostile behaviors. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8113635/ /pubmed/33995216 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.656437 Text en Copyright © 2021 Devís-Devís, Serrano-Durá and Molina. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Devís-Devís, José
Serrano-Durá, José
Molina, Pere
“The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping
title “The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping
title_full “The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping
title_fullStr “The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping
title_full_unstemmed “The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping
title_short “The Referee Plays to Be Insulted!”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on the Spanish Football Referees’ Experiences of Aggression, Violence, and Coping
title_sort “the referee plays to be insulted!”: an exploratory qualitative study on the spanish football referees’ experiences of aggression, violence, and coping
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8113635/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33995216
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.656437
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