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‘You want the buzz of having done well in a game that wasn’t easy’: a sociological examination of the job commitment of English football referees

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journal contribution
posted on 2015-04-10, 12:43 authored by Tom Parsons, Alan BairnerAlan Bairner
Based on a critical reading of relevant literature and in-depth interviews with football referees from various levels of the game in England, the aim of this study is to understand why referees become involved and, more pertinently, why they remain committed to the role despite the abuse and disrespect which they regularly encounter. Having considered the development of the football referee, the essay then examines existing literature concerned with refereeing as well as studies of job commitment in other human-service occupations. The subsequent data analysis leads to conclusions which both confirm and challenge findings of the limited research previously conducted in this area. Finally, the study suggests directions for organisations to follow in order to ensure the retention of referees.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Science & Motricité (Movement & Sport Sciences)

Volume

87

Issue

1

Pages

41 - 52 (12)

Citation

PARSONS, T. and BAIRNER, A., 2015. ‘You want the buzz of having done well in a game that wasn’t easy’: a sociological examination of the job commitment of English football referees. Movement and Sport Sciences - Science and Motricité, 87 (1), pp. 41 - 52.

Publisher

© ACAPS, EDP Sciences

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2015

Notes

This article was published in the journal, Movement and Sport Sciences - Science and Motricité [© ACAPS, EDP Sciences] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/sm/2014017

ISSN

2118-5735

Language

  • en

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