The “stupid referees”, how do they cope? : A survey of professional soccer referees’ vision of their profession

On a football field games are played between two teams, and the players of these teams get almost all of the attention. But there is another team on the field, the team of referees. The referees get mostly negative criticism, and are almost never mentioned in a positive way. This study is all about the teams’ captain, the main referee. Who is he? What does he have to go through? What makes him continue in his career? Earlier studies have shown that the work you do as a referee can be very stressful, with a lot of stressing factors coming from the players, the coaches, and at a higher level supporters and media (Nyberg, 2000, 2002). Because of all this, this study shows opinions from active referees in Allsvenskan in Sweden, and from some which are active on an international basis as well. Interviews have been made and a survey to compare the referees experiences with their sense of coherence, from Aaron Antonovskys theory SoC (Sense of Coherence). The results are showing that yes, there are connections between a successful career as a referee and a high level of sense of coherence, and that the interviewed referees’ spend a huge amount of time to be able to perform. Even though they try their hardest, they have to deal with threats in their daily work. Therefore, you can find the conclusion that you need to have a certain type of personality to be able to make it as a referee