Sport Rage
We know that club members and volunteers don’t have much spare time to plan – so we have done some initial thinking for you on how to have a sport rage free club.
It all comes down to being well prepared, promoting your ideas and being aware of the law.
So have a read of the sections below, and perhaps next time a committee meeting is on you can suggest lots of new ideas on how to create a sport rage free club!
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Section 1: Prepare – Getting your club ready to manage sport rage effectively
You can’t prevent sport rage without doing your homework first. Here, we explain how your club’s management can put in place some critical policies, processes and personnel aimed at stopping sport rage in your club.
It’s worth reviewing your constitution and rules if you have them. If you don’t have a constitution, go to the ‘getting started’ section of ClubKit, which explains in detail how to set these up in your club.
Preventing sport rage requires more than a policy change. Here are some simple steps to help your club get ready to eliminate incidents of sport rage:
Develop codes of conduct
Codes of conduct outline an agreed standard of behaviour for everyone – including administrators, coaches, officials, players and parents. For help creating your own codes of conduct, call your national sport organisation or regional sports trust for specific codes that you may be able to adopt. You can also create your own using our tip cards. Click here to download SPARC’s sample codes of conduct. (pdf, 46kb).
Establish disciplinary procedures
Your club constitution should contain a procedure for the discipline of members who breach codes of conduct. When setting up disciplinary procedures, it’s advisable you seek legal advice and speak to your national sport organisation or regional sports trust.
Establish an incident process
Once you have your codes of conduct and disciplinary procedures in place, you will be able to map out a clear process for dealing with sport rage incidents. Establish what the response is – step by step – and who is responsible for each step.
Here’s an example of a Sport Rage Incident Process:
|
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE |
ACTION |
|
Anyone |
Report it to the ground official or club committee member |
|
Ground official or club committee member
or referees/umpire if on-field.
|
Approach sport rager and issue a warning for breach of code
Based in the situation, decide on the next step:
- Take no further action
- Refer sport rager to committee for disciplinary action
(eg: a repeat or serious offence).
- Remove sport rager from field of play/venue.
- Suspend play until action is taken.
- Involve police if the behavious constitutes a criminal act.
|
|
Club Committee |
Disciplinary hearing resulting in outcomes like counselling ,
suspension or expulsion. |
Bind non-members
While members are bound by your rules, other people such as spectators, officials and parents of visiting teams are not. You can enforce your club rules over these non-members with ‘conditions of entry’ or asking parents to sign registration forms or codes of conduct.
Appoint ground officials
Appoint ground officials for every game day to deal with incidents as they occur. Ground officials should be trained and confident to deal with difficult situations. It’s also a good idea to provide a job description and information on their role. Look at some examples of various club job descriptions.
Train officials and other club members
If you want to eliminate sport rage, make sure everyone in your club values fair play.
To do this, you can:
- Hold a special and regular session on fair play for club members and officials.
- Make fair play training part of any accreditation processes you have.
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Section 2 – Promote – Getting the message across
Once you’ve done the groundwork, it’s time to promote your club’s position on sport rage to members, and educate people about fair play and being a good sport.
To create a positive sporting environment and manage sport rage, you will need to promote:
- Club policies and procedures.
- Club process for dealing with incidents.
- Fair play and good sporting behaviour.
Here’s some tips on how to do this:
Use ground officials
Communicate throughout your club who your ground officials are and what they do. It’s a good idea to arrange for ground officials to wear something distinctive on game day.
Use education brochures
Distribute sport rage education brochures at registration or orientation day. They’ll help people understand what sport rage is and how they can play a part in preventing it.
Communicate through articles
Publish articles and tips in your newsletter and/or website. Articles could focus on topics such as codes of conduct, the ground official, fair play and what to do if sport rage occurs.
Hold meetings
Think about arranging pre-season meetings between key groups, such as parents and coaches, to discuss club policies, fair play and expectations.
Provide role models
Arrange for role models from your sport to come and talk at your club. This can have a huge impact on members, especially young people.
Use ground announcements
Play announcements on game/event days that remind people to be sport rage free.
Promote positive messages
Communicate simple fair play messages via:
Try a slogan competition
Try running a fun competition asking club members to come up with catchy fair play slogans. Award a prize for the best effort.
Hold a Fair Play Day
Arrange a fair play day each season to reinforce positive messages. You could hand out information brochures, stickers, invite sport celebrities to talk, hang banners at your venue and play ground announcements.
Implement a Good Sport Award
Adopt a Good Sport Award to recognise positive behaviour by teams and individuals. Decide on winners via a nomination system. Use a certificate or prize to reward your good sports.
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Section 3 – Legal – Sport rage and the law
It is important for all club committee members to have a basic understanding of the law in relation to sport rage. Sporting clubs and associations have a responsibility to address behaviour that offends community standards, as well as those standards set by the association itself.
Here, we briefly outline the various aspects of New Zealand law as it applies to incidents of sport rage.
Acts of Parliament
One example of community standards is the Human Rights Act 1993 which prohibits (subject to limited exceptions) discrimination on the basis of attributes such as gender, age, colour, ethnic or national origin, race, sexual orientation, religion or disability. Some sports have specific rules prohibiting the abuse of or taunting of persons on similar grounds as set out in the Human Rights Act. In New Zealand vilification (abuse) of persons on similar grounds is unlawful.
Contract law and negligence
If a club or association (through the conduct of individuals at its games or activities) breaks its own rules or breaches the general duty of care that it owes to members, participants, officials, spectators and visitors, then it may be liable.
A fundamental requirement of law is that an organisation must abide by its own rules. In particular, members can enforce such rules as a contract between them and the organisation. If, as a result of your actions, someone suffers physical or mental harm or property damage, then they may look for compensation. In New Zealand, our Accident Compensation scheme generally prevents people from suing for personal injury caused by negligence. In rare circumstances, a person may be awarded exemplary damages where the Courts wish to punish behaviour that has shown an outrageous and flagrant disregard for the safety of others.
There are also possibilities of claims in respect of mental injury or nervous shock. Be aware, however, that the Accident Compensation laws do not prevent the organisation from being sued for loss of or damage to property.
Failing to observe any of the above requirements can result in penalties for individuals and sporting associations, not to mention the reputational damage which may result from unwelcome publicity.
Criminal law
Additionally, if the behaviour of individuals or groups at your sporting event or activity is sufficiently serious, then it may result in criminal charges.
People involved in grass-roots sport are not immune from the criminal law just because their behaviour occurs at a sporting contest. Both on-field and off-field conduct by players, officials and spectators can result in criminal convictions.
Criminal assault is the most common form of unlawful abusive behaviour which might arise at a sporting contest. It can arise:
- Through behaviour that causes the victim to feel threatened by the actions of another. Words by themselves do not amount to an assault. There must be some act or gesture accompanying the words which together indicate an intention to assault or which a reasonable person would understand as indicating such an intention; or
- By behaviour which results in the actual infliction of unlawful force on the body of another.
An assault may or may not involve actual physical contact. So an unruly spectator who spits at or threatens a referee, a player or the other team's supporters could be convicted of common assault provided that it can be established that the offender intended to cause harm, or was reckless (where the offender appreciates the risk of harm involved with their conduct but proceeds to carry out that conduct anyway).
In an on-field example from Australia, a female soccer player was convicted of common assault and fined $250 for spitting at a referee during a women's soccer match. The player also received a life suspension from the Soccer Association. More serious assaults include those involving actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm.
A rugby player was convicted of a criminal assault for deliberating punching and breaking an opposition player's jaw. The player ran some distance to punch the player and the facts showed that it was more than just a heat of the moment fight. The message is that voluntary assumption of risk by participants in sport does not provide open consent for other players or spectators to assault them.
The Courts have clearly demonstrated that they will not tolerate such behaviour whether in the sporting context or otherwise. A wider discussion of this whole area appears in the book "Winning The Red Tape Game – a club guide to New Zealand law". You can purchase this book by following the links from the SPARC website.
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