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THE REFEREE WHO suffered serious facial injuries following a match in Westmeath at the weekend has said he has forgiven those who attacked him.
Daniel Sweeney told RTÉ News that he holds no animosity towards his attackers, and wants to see a day when a referee can “go onto a football field, feel safe and be safe”.
Gardaí from Tullamore were called to the scene of the incident at a football club in Horseleap shortly before 1pm on Sunday.
Sweeney was attacked after showing a red card during the game.
He thanked the public for their support, as well as staff at Tullamore Hospital.
RTÉ News / TwitterReferee Daniel Sweeney, who was assaulted after a soccer match in the midlands at the weekend, says he would like to see the day that a referee can go on a pitch and 'feel safe' pic.twitter.com/B9R3NdX1j0
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 13, 2018
The FAI has begun an investigation into the attack.
Minister with responsibility for Sport Brendan Griffin said today he was “appalled” by this “disgraceful incident”.
He said he would discuss the matter with FAI CEO John Delaney.
“Thousands of soccer matches take place at all levels here every week and there’s rarely any issue whatsoever,” Griffin said.
Attacks of this nature are extremely rare but any such attack is one too many and we need to do our level best to ensure that the risk of such a thing ever happening again is minimised.
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Hope the lads responsible get whats coming to them
Attackers should be before a judge
@Zossima: attackers should be before a baseball bat
@John Doyle: damn straight!!!! Serious assault,clubs and stuff! Probably avoid jail…suspended sentence
@Ronan O’ Grady: why would anyone be a referee in this country after this?
Might be scared they will come after him or could be a man of faith as he said himself.
Lets hope the courts see them in a different light and jail them for a vicious premeditated thuggish assault.
I have always maintained and still do that the way players (and others) abuse referees on TV is the source of the problem. The abuse and backchat we see on TV undermines the position of referees world wide, although it may not be as bad as it used to be.
Two words of backchat and a red card should be applied, not by the local leagues but the professional game, and when games get abandoned because the top abusive players are sent off then, maybe referees will get the same respect in other sports as they do in rugby.
Managers need to tell their players to respect the referee and support the referees decisions, and not to fight, argue or abuse the referee, the same needs to be asked of parents at the underage sport – but I cannot see that happening, the will to change the mindset is not there – the competitiveness among the managers, clubs and supporters seems to override the respect for the referee – it is rarely you hear a manager say to his players, the most essential person for this match to take place is the referee, good, bad or indifferent, without the referee there would be no game.
Seen a lot of incidents in the mid to late 90’s. Teams would send on a player to cause a fight to get the games abandon. Most of the time referees would fall for it and abandon the game.
I have seen referees running off pitches to get to there cars in fear players would follow them.
Some of the referees would have the air let out of there tires. That was all in the Leinster Junior league.
This is an all time low for soccer. I hope he makes a full recovery.
Ya right. Hope he recovers.
Some parents really know how the ruin the fun of playing sports.
@prop joe: it was players attacked him? Adult match.
The people involved must be prosecuted, and banned for life from all sports. Failure to do so will imply that such behaviour is acceptable.
I can imagine all the “committee” from the club approaching him to “let it go” for the sake of the club
@Jack O’Meara: Entire club should get a one year ban by default if a player assaults an official. And there should be a nation wide half time walk off by all refs in all matches going forward until this club is banned. Time for people to say get ta fk with this. If they nutjobs on their squads, on their own heads be it.
The question is whether the word on the grapevine is correct about a certain ethnic group extending their repertoire to include terrorising referrees.
Ot course this must be challenged as a vile calumny and nailed before it gains credence.
But judge it’s part of our culture……….ok suspended sentence
So he’s an enabler and has exposed other refs to assault.
@Liam Byrne: What do you mean he is an “enabler”? Sounds like victim blaming.
Having moved one of my kids from soccer to GAA, I noticed a huge difference with attitude from parents and spectators, for some reason the soccer parents were much more critical and vocal of referees decisions.
Why
The sinkhole appeared under the wrong pitch.
Name & shame these disgusting individuals ….
Never happen in GAA…
@John Smith: No, the players just batter each other. GAA not so squeaky clean at the local level:
https://www.sportsjoe.ie/gaa/multiple-players-gang-full-forward-latest-gaa-brawl-182210
Hope he brings assault charges against all the thugs that attacked him…
Paul The Celtic ref would have hit him back.
Ahh the ref has concussion FORGIVE THEM now way
Is this the first time this has happened in a soccer match?
Pity the poor children! Having parent such as that
have your say