Discipline Process & Panel

At our pre-season meeting, the league outlined that we are introducing the NEHYL Discipline Panel – and given our start to the season it is definitely significantly busier than we expected (or, for that matter, wanted).  We want to ensure the process of discipline within the NEHYL remains consistent across the age groups – and primarily the Panel will deal with all the weekly opposition team reports (OTR) that are received through the MRC process. The Panel will also be keeping an eye on the outcomes from County FAs, referee reports when made through the NEHYL portal, and cautions, sending offs, and other matchday misconduct logged by referees following fixtures.

The Discipline Panel meets weekly to discuss all outstanding reports; based on the content of the reports the Panel will determine how those reports should be actioned which will be as follows:

• On field incidents which are deemed severe enough will be forwarded to County FA – with a cross-check made with the referees secretary to check whether the match appointed referee has already reported to the CFA directly. No additional action can be taken whilst the County FA deal with it (the same applies if the Police are involved).
• Cases which indicate a young referee or players from either side have been abused by club officials or spectators will be flagged to the CWO and County (if appropriate). We will write to the Club Secretary informing them of our action, including the involvement of the County FA and/or CWO.
• Cases relating to complaints of on field aggression by a particular team being unpunished by officials (match or club) will be logged and if regular complaints are received about the same team, we will request an experienced referee where possible to manage some games and a league representative to spot check matches. Cases received will be logged and the Divisional Secretary informed.
• Cases which report deliberate or inadvertent infringement of league match day rules such as failure to complete ID Checks etc will cause both teams to receive the relevant charge and the game may be deemed invalid. Cases received will be logged and the Divisional Secretary informed.
• There will also be cases of OTR where the Panel deem no further action deemed necessary at the time although the report will remain on the database and be reviewed if regular similar OTR are received from that Club and/or Team.

What is important is that it is our intention to make it clear that negative and inappropriate action - whether in the heat of the moment or not - is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. Repeated instances of such behaviour will likely result in the club Chairman, Secretary and team management being required to attend a meeting with the league Discipline Panel to discuss what appropriate action your club will take to break the cycle of abuse within the team and, if deemed appropriate, could result in additional sanctions. In addition, Divisional Secretaries will be keeping an eye on the fair play scores submitted through the MRC process for players, managers/coaches, and spectators. Where one or more average fair play score falls well below the average, then this will be flagged to the team and Club Secretary so that appropriate action can be taken to ensure that fair play scores are seen to start to improve; the Discipline Panel will also be made aware.

In an ideal world the Discipline Panel would have nothing to do – it is in all our interests to try and help significantly reduce cases of ill-discipline at all of our NEHYL games.