Sunderland society played hosts for the FA organised respect presentation in January.

Every qualified referee has to attend one of the arranged presentations within the coming months.

Alan Wilkie a former premier league referee and now regional referee development officer took the presentaion in front of a group of 60-70 referees from the Sunderland area.

Alan spoke in length of how the referee respect programme has been working since its introduction at the start of season 2008/09 and outlined the FA’s intentions on how to further improve the problems involving a lack of respect towards the referee from players , managers & supporters.

There was a good points & questions asked from the floor and the debate certainly started to heat up when one of our members suggested that the respect programme should start at the very top of the football tree the Premier league & not grass roots football as it currently is , our premier league stars who earn millions of pounds a year should be setting the example to the rest of football , a point that the majority of the audience agreed with entirely.

The meeting has started with a presentation to our society for our 100 year centenary.

Alan Wilkie presented a plaque on behalf of the FA & Roly Croysdale presented a block and gavel on behalf of the Referees Association.

Tags: Respect, FA Referee