Knowledge of Offside, Fouls and Misconduct Laws as Predictors of Violence at Football Events: Perception of Stakeholders in Southwest Nigeria

There have been several reported cases of violence leading to death of referees and many others have sustained injuries while some have been maimed during football matches in Nigeria League. Hence this study was carried out to investigate the place of the knowledge of the laws as predictor of violence as perceived by the stakeholders. Descriptive survey research design was adopted in the study and three hypotheses tested. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to glean one thousand two hundred and thirty two participants (n=1232). A self-structured questionnaire was the instrument used to elicit information from the respondents: knowledge of Football Laws questionnaire (KFLQ, r=0.78), Rules on offside questionnaire (ROQ, r=08), Rules of fouls and misconduct questionnaire (RFMQ, r= 0.83), Gender and violence vulnerability questionnaire, (GVVQ, r= 0.92) was structured and validated to collect information to tested the hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The findings revealed that good knowledge of the laws of the game relating to off side rules was perceived to reduce the incidence of violence in the field of football game (R = .541a; R2 = .221; F (1,1231) = 22.69; p < .05). Also it was found out that good knowledge of the laws as it relates to fouls and misconduct will predict violence reduction in the field of football game (R = .541a; R2 = .221; F (1,1231) = 22.69; p < .05) as perceived by the participants. In the result, it was also found out that violence in the field of the game has implications on the gender of the Referees as the female referees are always vulnerable (t = 2.09; P < 0.05). It is therefore recommended that stakeholders should be more equipped with the sound knowledge of the laws of the game and lastly, the female Referees should be more protected with adequate security during matches. Keywords:Football, Football Laws, Stakeholders, Violence. DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/33-04 Publication date:October 31st 202