From The Athletic · Colin Millar · · 1m 20s
Romania hands referees a black card for bad parents
Romanian youth football now lets a referee end the match for good when the abuse comes from the stands, not the pitch.
In brief
Romanian youth football now lets a referee end the match for good when the abuse comes from the stands, not the pitch. The black card moves the punishment to where the problem actually is: the adults shouting from the sideline. Originally reported by The Athletic.
A third card appears
The Romanian Football Federation added a black card to the usual yellow and red. It punishes nobody on the pitch. It ends the game.
Aimed at the stands
Yellow and red sanction individual players. The black card answers what the referee sees in the crowd: parents and spectators behaving badly.
“observe inappropriate behaviour from spectators or parents”
Step one, a word
The referee stops play and asks each coach to go speak to their own team's parents. If there is a PA system, an announcement goes out too.
Step two, ten minutes
If it carries on, the match is suspended for 10 minutes and both teams go to the dressing room while coaches try to calm the stands.
Step three, final whistle
Persist after play resumes and the game is over. Abandoned permanently, with no option to restart it later that day or any other.
“The match is permanently abandoned and cannot be resumed.”
Posters for 130 academies
The FRF sent every one of its 130 academies a kit: a banner, conduct posters for parents, and flyers explaining the three steps. No other federation has tried this.
The one thing
The black card moves the punishment to where the problem actually is: the adults shouting from the sideline.
