- Referees who judge children’s and youth football can in some cases do so even though they have been convicted of sexual offenses, Kaliber reveals.
- Since 2020, there is a requirement to check load registers for everyone who meets children and young people in football, including referees.
- But the football districts handle the control differently. In Västerbotten, extracts were not checked at all because they did not consider the judges to have regular contact with young people.
Football referees who judge children’s and youth football can in some cases do so even though they have been convicted of sexual offenses.
Since 2020, there has been a requirement to check load registers for everyone who meets children and young people in football, including referees, but one district has not checked referees at all. And there last year a person convicted of sexual exploitation of children was convicted. Something that Andreas Jansson, communications manager at the Swedish Football Association, reacts strongly to.
– It is of course serious if you have not done such a check and that it is a referee who also judges children’s and youth matches. It should not happen, says Andreas Jansson, communications manager at the Swedish Football Association.
Judges get to see the children personal information before the match and can thus create contact outside the field. Caliber finds a previous case where a person in his role as a judge met children who he was then convicted of having sexually abused.
Since January 2020, the Swedish Football Association has demanded, following a decision by the Swedish Sports Confederation, that everyone who has regular contact with minors must present an extract from their criminal record that shows, among other things, all sexual crimes. even judges.
But when Kaliber checks people who have judged children’s and youth football during the month of May last year, there are a total of twelve people who have been convicted of sexual crimes. In recent years, seven of them have been convicted of sexual offenses, in two cases against minors.
The offenses of the other five judges are no longer visible in the criminal record because they are too old, they have been thinned out. There were three cases of sexual offenses against minors. All referees refereed several matches last year.
– It is of course serious and we must try to ensure that this does not happen in the future, says Andreas Jansson, Swedish Football Association.
Caliber review shows that the football districts handle the control of the referees differently. In Västerbotten, extracts were not checked at all because they did not consider the judges to have regular contact with young people. And here last year a person convicted of sexual exploitation of children was convicted. Lars Lindgren is the head of the office for the Västerbotten Football Association.
– It sounds very unhappy. It does not sound good. Then we must then we must take another thinker and review how we have reasoned.
After the interview, Lars Lindgren returns and says that they have now decided to start checking register extracts for judges as well.
Andreas Jansson, head of communications at the Swedish Football Association, says that they will review the routines that exist according to the information that has emerged in Caliber.
– We will act on it. We have an obligation to do that, he says.
Source: ICELAND NEWS