Summary of the 2022 season

Then it's time to sum up the 2022 season as a football referee. I've taken some new milestones this year, both positive and negative, but still feel like I'm treading water for various reasons.

I don't referee a lot of matches and I don't spend my whole life on it. I usually say that I want to average 1.5 matches per week. Some weeks 2 and other weeks 1 match. During the year 2021 I refereed a total of 33 matches and during 2022 I refereed 37 matches. Fair enough, I think, as around this I do a lot that has to do with football as well.

We'll start with the positive things this year. The 2022 season has brought me new assignments such as Division 5 qualifier as circle referee, Division 4 qualifier as circle referee and debut as assistant in Division 2. I think I've had five or six observers checking on me and where I have raised my lowest level and have at worst this year a grade of 8.3. I'm not going to go deeper into the rating scale, those of you who read this have a little idea about it, I think. What I am most satisfied with during the year is my last match of the season, which is qualifying match number 2 for division 4 with a rating of 8.4, but a report that gave me very good marks for movement patterns and match management. Trying to pat myself on the back a lot about that match, because it was good! What I'm trying to get into is that I'm recovering from an abuse against me just a week before this match, I'll go through that briefly below.

What overshadows my season this year is that I have experienced violence against me as a referee. An abuse and assualt. Also a premiere, and a boring milestone, for me with such gross violence, like fist and violence against me. I'm not going to draw the whole report here, but in short, it was a good match until one team scores the winning goal in the 93rd minute and it will then be 2-3 in the match. After the goal, a player gets a yellow card for talking to much against us referees and then he directly starts waving his hands, fists and starts fighting. He luckily only gets a fist on my chin, but definitely wants to fight more. His teammates and some from the crowd literally manage to wrestle him down and carry him away before anything else can happen, because he wants to go even more.

What I want to address here is not really the event itself, but how the time has been afterwards. In advance, one might think that such a thing should result in a lifetime ban or at least a lot of years away from football. That is my personal opinion and also many others who have stated their personal opinion in this. In reality, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. My district and association I belong to chose to suspend the player for 360 days from all soccer and futsal. It made me lose all energy for a while. How can you literally hit a referee with your fist and only get suspended for a season? It's a mystery to me. For real. I get a knee injury and be out for a season – or I know, I'm nailing a referee because I'm only suspended for a season.

I have heard that such decisions must be appealed. All said and done, I did it, then to a higher authority and the decision was then 14 months and suspension from ALL sports in Sweden. The decision gave me a little more energy and a step in the right direction. But… I still feel a great sigh about this. The decision was extended from October to the end of December, which are months when you don't play football in Sweden anyway. It's kind of like suspending a player the last game of the season and 2 months ahead for a violent tackle (usually you suspend number of games, which is more accurate). Yippie says that player because now I have a winter break and can play again in the spring. The player who beat me, I think, feels a bit the same way here. That it will be a time-determined punishment, but half the punishment resolves itself because then it is winter break anyway. The more I think about it, the more I am rooted in the fact that the player is still only suspended for one season for violent, uncontrolled and completely unjustified violence against a match official - against a football referee. Against me.

I am not done with this process yet. God so much time and thought this has taken for me, that's why I mean this sad event overshadows my season. So. Heavenly. Boring. I spent a lot of time on the referee's report, it was written a lot in the media where I have read comments like "it's a shame that he only got one fist in" or "that's where the fist should hit". As I said, it has taken up a lot of my thoughts and my time. But what I think has taken up most of my thoughts is "Why don't you put your foot down harder?" Why not set an example? I've received support, like hell, I'm not saying anything about that. I have received lots of texts, phone calls and love. However, the support at my workplace, out there on the field and from my employer I feel zero and no support at all. It's sad, just very sad.

At the same time, what I think is so wonderful about this is that my thoughts about quitting refereeing football have not grown, not in the slightest. Perhaps rather a bit the other way around. I want to referee even more. I want to go harder to get up one more step and basically I think this incident and all the other situations you had to make decisions about during this year have made me a better referee, maybe even dare I say it has made me a little better person? Because when you referee football, you develop not only as a referee, but also as a person and as a human. It's so nice to still be able to say "I love refereeing football".