The shouts from the stands — “Go! You got this,” “way to go” and “well done” — were just the sort of things that people would hope to hear at a youth soccer game.
But on the pitch, at the Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan, referee Angelina Baldino and two assistant referees had video cameras strapped to their chests — a stark reminder that what often comes from parents and spectators in the stands, coaches on the sidelines and players on the field is often not so nice.
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Ontario Soccer is running a pilot project testing out whether putting these body cameras on referees will reduce referee abuse, largely from the sidelines, that is contributing to a shortage of officials.
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