Mom slaps referee during daughter's soccer game in Forsyth County

By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A match between 10-year-old girls’ soccer teams disintegrated into a slapping incident Sunday morning in Forsyth County when a 39-year-old mother went onto the field and smacked a 30-year-old male referee.

The mother, according to a Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office incident report, attacked the referee during a match between the Cobb Lady Chiefs and the Lanier Sharks at Central Park when the referee didn’t stop play after her daughter was struck in the chest and knocked down by a soccer ball.

The woman, whose daughter played for the Lanier Sharks, was not arrested because she left the scene before sheriff’s deputies arrived answering a 911 call. Her identity, therefore, is not being released, said Capt. Frank Huggins, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office.

He identified her only as 39 and from Gainesville, the home of the Lanier Sharks. The referee, James Hayes, could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Authorities won’t arrest the woman unless the referee swears out a warrant against her in magistrate court, according to Huggins.

Huggins said the woman had had a disagreement with Hayes the day before during another Sharks game in the weekend tournament. And, earlier Sunday, Hayes had ejected parents of another player from the grounds because of what he considered inappropriate behavior, said Huggins.

Huggins said the referee’s face was reddened and his lip bloodied by the slap.

Iggy Moleka, an executive with the Forsyth County-based United Futbol Academy, which staged the tournament, said Monday he didn’t learn about the incident until Sunday night when he saw mention of it on a soccer blog.

He said he’s never experienced such an incident, but he could understand how emotional the players and parents sometimes get, especially during tournament games.

“Some of them [parents] lose their minds,” he said. “But the last thing you want is a grown-up person attacking another grown-up person in front of children. What kind of message does that send?”

Chiefs coach Ryan Robertson said it happened so fast the next thing he knew he saw the woman was on the field and confronting the referee and “I saw her hand go out.”

The referee didn’t call timeout when the girl was struck by the ball and fell because the other team was in control of the ball and those are the rules of the game, said Robertson. The referee called timeout only after the ball went out of bounds.

“When she fell, the referee stood by her with his hands open, indicating play on,” said Robertson.

The girl was fine after the fall.

Sean Chamberlain, girls academy director with Cobb Futbol Club, said he’s never seen a parent, in any age league, male or female, go onto the field and strike a referee.

“That’s the kind of violence you’d associate with another sport like hockey,” he said.

The final score of the Chiefs-Sharks game on Sunday was 0-0.