Continuing referee abuse sees Wellington referees withdraw their services for next weekend’s rugby

The Wellington Rugby Referees Association (WRRA), has withdrawn their services from refereeing club rugby in Wellington next weekend.

The association’s President and Chairman Ben Van Berkel issued the following statement on Sunday evening:

As advised last week, we had informed WRFU that if further referee abuse was reported this season, we would not appoint referee’s to games the following weekend.

We had three referee abuse incidents yesterday, so have advised WRFU that no referees will be appointed to games next weekend (10-12 July). The mid-week games that have already been appointed will continue as planned.

It will be a WRFU decision around what they do with next week’s games and that is a decision they are currently making.

I reiterate that this decision by the Executive Committee was not made lightly, but given the widespread nature of this continued abuse, we believe all reasonable options have been exhausted and need to take this stand to support and protect our members.

The WRRA is a voluntary organisation and it is understood they have had a spike in referee abuse this season and as noted by Van Berkel above they gave everyone involved in the game fair warning prior to three more incidents this past weekend.

It is unclear whether this relates to College Sport Wellington college rugby competitions or just WRFU club rugby ones. This will be clarified. Update: there is no college rugby this weekend as it’s the first week of school holidays.

If this means that club rugby is off this coming weekend it could significantly impact the remainder of the season in all grades and competitions.

Pushing everything back a week in club rugby could be seen by some as a logical course of action. The Wellington Lions open their NPC campaign against Hawke’s Bay in Wellington on Sunday 2 August so this event wouldn’t be affected, and it is already understood that Wellington Lions squad members are going to be ineligible for club rugby on 18 and 25 July (the scheduled day of the Jubilee and Hardham Cups finals).

This Wednesday’s Wellington College v Palmerston North Boys’ High School traditional involving the U15s, second XVs and first XVs of the two schools is still on.

More to come.