OLIVER HOLT: Let’s all talk loud about this problem. The stench comes from bosses like Mikel Arteta throwing Sunday league refs under the bus

• Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta attacked officials after their defeat by Newcastle
• The problem is not referees but managers who subject officials to ridicule
• Have you witnessed abuse of referees? Contact [email protected] 

A couple of weeks ago, in the aftermath of his hysterical and overwrought attack on referees, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, with the full backing of his club, doubled down on his character assassination of officials and called for the criticism to grow.

‘We have to talk loudly,’ he said, a few days after his side had lost to a goal at Newcastle that he felt should have been disallowed.

‘If you have a problem and you put it in your drawer, the problem is in the drawer and it’s going to stink at some point. If you have a problem, let’s talk about it, try to improve it.’ Arteta’s right. Except the problem that we are putting in the drawer is not referees and their decision-making.

The stink is not referees. The problem is managers like Arteta who are scared to take responsibility for their own shortcomings. The stink is managers like him who think nothing of the human cost of what they do.

The stench is people like Arteta who think they can throw other people far less powerful and influential than them under the bus and expose them to ridicule and violence because they do not have the courage to take responsibility for a football result.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta launched an attack on officials after their defeat at Newcastle

The Gunners boss doubled down on his comments and received the backing of his club

Mail Sport has launched a campaign to stop the abuse of referees at all levels of the game

And if you’re offended by that language, if you think a word like ‘stench’ to describe the actions of the Arsenal manager is too strong, then maybe you should look at the repercussions his emotive language has on officials around the country.

Arteta and Arsenal seemed to think they could persuade people they were embarking on some sort of moral crusade for the good of the game, when all they were pursuing was a brazen exercise in self-interest.

All they have achieved is to increase the fetid, fevered atmosphere around refereeing in this country, all they have achieved is to feed risible conspiracy theories about corruption, all they have achieved is to make themselves look like a club who can’t handle a defeat and react by behaving like playground bullies.

It is not just Arteta, obviously. Sadly, the same criticism can be aimed at many of our game’s leading managers.

In the recent past, managers such as Jose Mourinho have made an art form of belittling and undermining referees. Referees are easy targets for flat-track bullies.

It is only just over a week since the Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino screamed in the face of the fourth official at the end of his side’s 4-4 draw with Manchester City and then stormed on to the pitch to confront the referee.

He was upset because he thought the referee had blown for full time too early.

Pochettino did at least have the good grace to apologise. Arteta did not. He seems to think, actually, that his attacks on referees are a joke. When he did not complain about the refereeing in Arsenal’s Champions League victory over Sevilla, he mockingly suggested that showed he was a reasonable man.

Jose Mourinho had hit out at referee Anthony Taylor after the Europa League final in May

Mauricio Pochettino (centre) admitted he was wrong to react angrily at officials at the end of Chelsea’s eight-goal thriller against Manchester City at Stamford Bridge earlier this month

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We have left this problem, personified by people such as Arteta, in the drawer for way too long and it is about time we took it out and confronted it.

It is about time managers were told to take a long, hard look at themselves and the damage they are doing to the wider game.

It is time to stop indulging their tantrums and their abuse and to come down hard.

It is time to stop Arteta and people like him putting referees across the country in danger.

It is time to start levelling proper punishments at managers who persist with this behaviour.

We all know the truth: there is a direct line between the kind of abuse that Arteta aimed at officials and the physical and verbal attacks that are visited on referees every single day in grassroots football.

Those attacks are largely learned behaviour and they are learned from watching some of our elite managers at work.

At least Premier League referees have a degree of protection from the aggression and intimidation aimed at them by managers because they operate in the full glare of publicity, where television cameras record events and act as a check on behaviour.

There is a link between behaviour of managers like Arteta to abuse of grassroots referees

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Referees at grassroots level do not have the same protection, so intimidation runs rife.

Little wonder that it is becoming harder and harder to recruit referees. Why would anyone want to run the gamut of that kind of abuse?

As an aside, can we please throw into Arteta’s drawer of hidden idiocies the idea that the solution to the so-called refereeing problem in this country is to recruit ex-players to the ranks of our officials.

For a start, ex-players aren’t stupid. They see first-hand the abuse that referees get. They have never shown any interest in becoming referees in the past. Why would they start now? Why would they want to invite that abuse on to themselves? Moreover, the idea that former players have some sort of gift that makes them see incidents the same way is so flawed that it is laughable. They disagree about decisions as much as people who have never kicked a ball.

So let’s get back to Arteta’s advice and keep talking even more loudly about the problem. Because otherwise, nothing will happen.

The Arsenal manager has been charged by the FA for his attack on referees, so let us hope that the governing body punish him properly for his actions.

That should start with a three-match touchline ban. A second offence should bring a stadium ban. A third offence should bring a longer stadium ban. That kind of punishment might, at last, prompt some managers to start behaving like adults.

Roberto De Zerbi said this month that he does not like ’80 per cent’ of Premier League referees

It is time to stop indulging this kind of petulant, spoiled, delinquent behaviour and treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

If we do not, the persecution of referees at all levels of our game is going to get worse and worse. The likelihood of them being assaulted is going to grow and grow. The possibility a referee is going to be seriously injured, or worse, will be heightened.

And, as a game, we cannot just leave that in the drawer. As a game, we cannot allow that to happen.

As a game, it is time to stand up and say this behaviour has to stop.

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