Policeman gets life

Recently there have been two cases in South Africa of player assault on a referee in a lower league club match leading André Watson, South Africa's referee boss, to call for life bans for players who physically assault a referee.

Western Province have recently imposed a life ban on a player. Playing for Gardens Tech second team against All Saints of Macassar in Macassar, Themba Thembinkasi of Gardens Tech is alleged to have used his should to knock a young  referee (a 21-year-old Stellenbosch student) to the ground, kicked him and then hit him in the face, whereupon the All Saints players came to the referee's assistance. The match was immediately abandoned. This happened on 2 May 2009.

At a disciplinary hearing on the following Thursday, 7 May 2009, Thembinkasi was found guilty and banned from playing rugby for life with the right to appeal. Thembinkasi is a captain in the police force, stationed at Khayelitsha in greater Cape Town.

A charge of assault was laid against Thembinkasi at the Somerset West police station..

In another incident, a 17-year-old referee Schalk Rossouw was physically attacked at a club game in Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape on Saturday, 9 May 2009. Rossouw was officiating a third-team fixture between Kruisfontein and Harlequins and immediately called off the game after a Harlequins player struck him on his ear.

Watson said of this incident: “I would like to condemn this incident and any assault on referees and match officials in the strongest possible terms. It is totally unacceptable and incidents like this should never be allowed to happen.

“Violence in rugby, at any level, can never be condoned. There should be no place in our wonderful game for any player who assaults or attacks a match official. 

“It is also disgusting that our referees are being insulted and humiliated in the manner in which they are. But let me also add that with all the negative publicity referees are getting through the media, I am not surprised that incidents like this are happening on our fields.”

The incident was also condemned by the President of SARU, Oregan Hoskins. 

Watson said SARU had made strides in adding to the ranks of referees but attacks on match officials and negative criticism of referees had an impact on the campaign.

“An incident like this chases away a number of referees. It also breaks the cycle of development and harms the standard of refereeing. We continuously need more referees and it will be difficult to recruit aspiring refs if incidents like this continue,” he said.

A charge of assault has been laid with the police in Humansdorp following the attack.