Aggression towards Referees in Amateur Football in Spain: A Loglinear Approach

Aggressive behavior towards football referees is becoming increasingly common, and as a result we are getting used to it and coming to see it as an inevitable and intrinsic element of football matches. Spectators, players and coaches are all prone to take this view. This article studies how the types of aggression shown by these three groups towards the referee are related to one another, and how they are perceived by the referee, in amateur football. For this purpose, the phenomenon was assessed, using an ad-hoc form, both by an expert and by the referee, in 119 regional and youth football matches in the city of Valencia and surrounding municipalities. We analysed the data using a loglinea…