DAVY Fitzgerald has called for lifetime bans for anyone who assaults a referee.
Fitzgerald’s comments come after a series of incidents over the past weekend in Roscommon, Kerry, Wexford and Mayo where match officials were assaulted and games abandoned at underage and senior level.
Referees are up in arms with talk of possible strikes by match officials in support of their colleagues.
READ MORE: GAA has reached "crisis point" over referee assaults says Wexford chief
New Waterford manager Fitzgerald hopes it won’t come to that, and he believes that clubs should also have their own code of conduct to deal with the individuals involved.
Fitzgerald is known as a fiery character on the line and he says he may have to look at his own behaviour.
But he also feels that at inter-county level in particular communication between referees and managers could be improved.
Speaking at the launch of Centra’s Ireland’s Fittest Family, Fitzgerald said: “I do not think it’s right that any referee should be treated like that or assaulted.
“I am one of the ones that will fight with the referees and have arguments here and there but under no circumstances should there be any referee or any person assaulted like that. That’s for definite.
“I think there needs to be a bit of joined up thinking here about what’s the best way to look at the whole situation from a communications point of view and how things are handled.
“I was one of the biggest culprits. I would give out left, right and centre and I’d give it to ‘em (referees).
"Yeah, maybe I need to have a look at myself and try not to be that bad.
“It’s hard if you see a very bad decision and you can’t help yourself, but maybe I shouldn’t.
“But maybe if I got an opportunity to talk to the referee afterwards in a good environment, 24 hours afterwards, or something.
“I hope they don’t go on strike.
“I think what needs to be done is anyone that assaults a referee just needs to be dealt with severely.
“I think that’s important that they see they are being backed.
“But I do believe that the whole thing needs to be looked at - I really do.”
Speaking about opening the communication lines, Fitzgerald continued: “Now, one thing that I would love the GAA to maybe consider is communication with the referees.
“Definitely from an inter-county point of view if you could have a few minutes with them the day or two before the game to see what way they are thinking of reffing the game.
“I think we might get it five minutes before the match but the ref is actually tense enough and he has enough on his plate.
“I’d love to see a bit of communication and even a bit of communication afterwards.
“There are decisions that would annoy you but if you could actually have a chat to see what way they saw it or they could say to you, ‘Listen, I got that wrong.’
“I actually think we could learn a lot from the rugby and how they handle themselves and how to deal with things.”
Fitzgerald says such a system would probably be unworkable at club level.
He added: “I think sometimes managers get very frustrated because they see decisions they know are wrong and the referee mightn’t accept that they are wrong at the time.
“I think there has to be a case where we as managers know that referees are not going to get every decision right, and we will challenge it, but at the end of the day they are human beings.
“They deserve to be treated properly. The one thing I don’t like is sometimes a referee who you actually can’t say boo (to).
“If you go and say boo, they will come after you.
“I just think a bit of common sense. Let’s respect the referees for definite as regards, I think anyone that goes near a referee or hits a referee should be probably banned for life - gone.
“I think that’s it over - end of story
“But I think the communication lines is something that we actually probably should explore.”
***** Londis will sponsor RTÉ's hit TV show Ireland’s Fittest Family for a fourth year in a row. It returns to our screens on Sunday 2 nd October for a tenth season .
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