Nuneaton Referees’ Association were distressed to learn of the recent situation involving one of our members, this being the second serious assault on a referee within a month.

We strongly condemn violence and threatening behaviour towards match officials, and are committed to working with partner organisations to eradicate this type of behaviour from our national game.

The matter is being dealt with by Birmingham County Football Association and we have every confidence that they will conduct their investigation in a thorough manner and come to the correct decisions.

We will also be consulting our local MP Marcus Jones, who has played football within the league concerned and urging him to bring the matter up with the Chief Constable of Warwickshire regarding the lack of suitable deterrent to the people who commit these assaults. To date the official involved has not been spoken to by an officer, despite the assault being serious.

Some match officials have expressed their solidarity with the official concerned by refusing to take charge of matches within the league for an undetermined period. Nuneaton Referees’ Association would like to stress that this will be a personal decision by those officials and no directive has been issued. We will also be making representation to the Nuneaton & District Sunday League regarding this and previous incidents involving the club concerned.

We will not issue any more comments until the matter has been dealt with by the Police and BCFA.

Commenting on this issue, Marcus Jones MP said: "Under whatever circumstances this type of behaviour towards referees and their assistants or any other member of the public is completely unacceptable and I hope that the police take this incident very seriously indeed.

"There is also the wider issue of whether those officiating football matches should be afforded more protection by the law, whether in the form of legislation or guidance given to the Crown Prosecution Service and judges.

"I fully intend to raise this issue with the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport to see what more can be done, because if we allow these types of incidents to continue grass roots football will become a thing of the past as no one in their right mind will want to become a referee.”