Scott Radley: Body cams on youth soccer refs?

If ever we needed a sign that the apocalypse is upon us, look no further than Ontario Soccer's plans to protect youth referees from abuse by adults.

Body cams.

Yes, we've reached this point.

The fact that teenagers working in the under-nine to under-11 age groups will be getting this equipment before some police is mind-blowing. But the reality that they need some kind of protection - or simply an evidence-gathering device for the inevitable disciplinary hearings - is more than that. It's pathetic.

It's a sad state in our society today," says Ontario Soccer CEO Johnny Misley, that we have to even consider putting cameras on referees."

The fact that they have to do that, from a cultural perspective and a sport perspective, that's unbelievable," echoes Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Neil Lumsden.

They're both bang on.

There's no doubt that it can be emotional watching your kid play a sport. There are moments many of us have shouted Hey, that's a trip!' or Ref, that's a foul!' before we catch our tongues and revert to some level of maturity. Possibly even feeling a pang of embarrassment for having said anything at all.

It would be better if we hadn't even said that. But let's not expect perfection. People are human.

The real problem is that while there are those who stop there, there are others who morph from Bruce Banner to the Hulk before the game is half over. There are those who jump the chasmic gap between offering a momentary yelp versus getting in an official's face while exploring all the various ways you can use language once reserved for truckers and hockey dressing rooms.

Getting personal and using profanities and threatening in a verbal sense is offside," Misley says. And physical touching of a referee or any participant in the field of play is offside."

To the average person, that might sounds obvious. Surely it doesn't go that far. Yet that's exactly what he's trying to prevent. Because he says it does happen.

While the numbers of players signing up for soccer has boomed since the pandemic ended and we could get back to team sports, he says the number of officials has cratered. Misley points out that last year, it was 40-something per cent of pre-COVID totals.

Ontario Soccer polled them and found the No. 1 reason 8,300 referees had been whittled to about 4,000 was abuse. Meanwhile, when thousands of officials were polled by the National Association of Sports Officials in the U.S. a few years ago, the respondents overwhelmingly cited parents, coaches and fans as the leading cause of sportsmanship problems in kids' games.

Adults, in other words.

It fires me up and it disappoints me," Lumsden says.

Call it whatever you want. Harassment, bullying, acting like an idiot. But it's surely frightening for some - possibly many - of the young boys and girls trying to call a game and finding themselves locked in the crimson glare of an adult or two. Or five. Or 10. It's ridiculous.

So body cams it is. Fifty of them will be spread out to all 18 districts across the province as part of a pilot project. Meaning if you have a kid in soccer here in Hamilton, you might see an official wearing one this summer.

The images they capture will be beamed directly to the cloud so someone who misbehaves won't be able to bully the official into erasing what the camera caught. That ref couldn't tweak it even if he or she wanted to. The lens won't lie.

Misley hopes this will be a visual deterrent more than anything. Stop the terrible behaviour before it starts. Failing that, it'll at least catch the evidence necessary to deal with the offending adult.

Ultimately it's a creative, modern idea to solve a perplexing, old problem. We've been hearing for years and years about parents and coaches acting like maniacs. Not just at the soccer pitch but in hockey arenas and basketball courts and football fields and everywhere else kids play games. And not all of them. Not even most. But enough.

So if this is what this is what Ontario Soccer feels it must do to protect its young officials, so be it. It's certainly worth a shot. Other organizations in other sports will surely be watching.

You just wonder what comes next if this doesn't do the trick? Bear spray? Nunchuks? Bo staffs? Tasers? Blow darts?

Or maybe we can just smarten up.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com