The COVID-19 outbreak has affected life around the world. As countries react to the pandemic through various measures impacting upon the civil liberty of citizens, football has not been immune to these interventions. Football around the globe has been interrupted, from professional leagues to grassroots and youth football, whilst attempts to restart the game have been problematic and complicated. Amongst all of the attempts across the world to restart professional leagues or identify when any level of football might be restarted are the referees, essential to any resumption of football. This commentary considers the role of referees in any restoration of football at professional, grassroots and youth level, the challenges and opportunities that might present themselves to FIFA, UEFA and other confederations and the national Football Associations (FA), as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact football globally.

General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

In December 2019, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was detected in three patients from the city of Wuhan, China. By January 2020, COVID-19 was declared a widespread pandemic creating a global health crisis, resulting in millions of people contracting the virus and thousands losing their lives. Alongside the wide-reaching health crisis, the impact of COVID-19 had significant economic and societal effects leaving a historical legacy, which will affect countries throughout the world for a considerable period of time. As COVID-19 spread around the globe, the way people socialize, work, and study essentially changed forever. Therefore, this essay provides an insight into the rapid process that universities across the globe undertook to transition their teaching operations online. Projects and pedagogic reviews that traditionally would have taken months or years to devise were compressed into days, as the pandemic necessitated that traditional concerns about online teaching were cast aside. Consequently, this essay discusses these new educational platforms in sport management education and their future role in developing professionals who will be at the forefront of an unprecedented industry growth in the years and decades after COVID-19.

This article focuses on the response by 2,056 football referees across all 51 County Football Associations in England, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey to an online survey conducted from 30 September 2015 to 30 November 2015 regarding their experience of officiating since the implementation of a Respect programme in 2008 by the English Football Association. In assessing the impact of the programme, whilst 54 per cent of referees felt that it has been somewhat successful, there remains a need to implement stronger sanctions and show greater support when dealing with cases of misconduct. 60 per cent of referees still experience abuse every couple of games and 19 per cent have experienced some form of physical abuse. With 42 per cent of our sample officiating for less than five years, there is an urgent need for the impact and effectiveness of the programme to be re-evaluated.

The launch of the Respect Program in 2008 was intended to improve the working environment for referees at all levels of the game. However, eight years since the launch, this article has identified significant issues with the organization and management of the campaign and the verbal and physical abuse to which referees are subjected. Findings are concerned with the experiences of 2056 referees across England, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, who responded to an online questionnaire, and given the emergent themes from the data are linked to a figurational framework through location within Norbert Elias's Civilizing Process. Findings identify a disenfranchised workforce, an uneven distribution of power and wider issues connected with the very structure of the game itself within England. The article concludes with specific recommendations designed to review and reinvigorate the Respect Program and as a consequence the working conditions for referees.