‘Went too far’: Soccer coach seen aggressively yelling at assistant referee, allegedly spewed racist remarks

A soccer coach for a U16 women’s team is under fire, with an investigation launched by Soccer Quebec, after seemingly aggressing an assistant referee during a match on Saturday in Longueuil.

A parent from the Longueuil team shared photos on social media of the coach of the Lakeshore Soccer Club yelling in the face of a linesman.

Karine Barbeau said it escalated because of a call to disallow a goal, minutes before the game was ending and Longueuil was up 1-0.

Barbeau said it became physical.

“It’s understandable that he should be angry that the match was changing, it was a game-changer,” she said in an interview in French Monday. “But after a fraction of a second, he started running towards the linesman with his body hitting the linesman’s body.”

“He was in the face of the referee, and there was some very brief contact, a lot of yelling, a lot of gesturing,” said Eduard-Nick Pascalau, the general manager of the South Shore Regional Soccer Association (ARSRS).

The coach was then issued a red card and told to leave the field, but he did not initially obey the order.

“Parents in Longueuil were outraged,” Barbeau said. “We understand that he’s angry, but he went too far.”

“He did what we teach him to do in soccer, we call it the stop sign,” says Thomas Harnois, the coordinator of the referee department for the ARSRS. “It’s basically to put the arm out just so the coach understands that he needs to stop, but that didn’t stop the coach.”

Although Barbeau says she couldn’t hear what he was saying, since she was too far away sitting in the stands, the ARSRS, overseeing the referees of that game, say racist remarks were allegedly made against the linesman.

Viewing the video of the match will however be necessary to confirm whether any racist or hateful comments were made by the coach. The ARSRS will also collaborate with the investigation conducted by Soccer Quebec.

In a Facebook post after the game, the Lakeshore Soccer Club confirmed they fired the coach from their club, adding they “in no way condone any mistreatment of soccer officials” and that “there is a zero tolerance policy on any form of racial discrimination.”

Nathanaël de Wilde, Director of Arbitration at Soccer Quebec said,  “We condemn this behaviour, it should never happen. We also salute the swift decision of Lakeshore to fire the coach. We now await the incident report from the officials to be able to take action.”

Soccer Quebec says that once they’ve reviewed the reports of the incident, sanctions could be laid against the coach like a suspension, ranging from a month to even an indefinite suspension.

Demands for a culture change

Barbeau said she needed to speak up about this, adding that the behaviour should not be tolerated.

“We often see coaches shouting things at referees,” said Barbeau. “But for it to be as physically violent as it was for me, it was the first time I’d seen that.”

“We care about the development of youth and this beautiful game and these type of incidents, they basically bring the game into disrepute for no good reason,” said Pascalau.

“The linesman, who was only able to keep his hand raised to signal that [coach] had to leave the field and didn’t flinch, remained very, very calm,” said Barbeau. “He was really exceptional to keep his cool like that.”

Now Barbeau is calling on the culture and treatment of game officials to change.

“I think it’s by talking that we’ll be able to change things little by little,” she said. “I think referees have a right to a safe job.”

“Seeing my young referee’s not so young referees dealing with this has long term effects on them and mentally they get shaken up a lot,” said Harnois. “For me, it’s really to have things in place, show them they have our support.”

Leadership within the ARSRS are in touch with the victim, and want to see an end to these incidents.

“We do hope to achieve a cultural change through time,” said Pascalau. “We know that it’s impossible to do it from one day to the next, but we do hope to achieve it over time.”

“At the end of the day, it’s sports and we’re there for the young players, for the older players,” said Harnois. “It’s really good to have everyone intervene if they see something on the pitch.”