A LEADING Midlands junior football league will be one of the first in the county to introduce the Football Association's new Respect campaign.

At a meeting on Saturday night, members of the Mercian Festival Junior Football League were introduced to the campaign, which aims to reduce bad behaviour in the game.

Matt Jones, Worcestershire FA’s Development Officer for Boys, explained how referees, leagues, clubs, players, parents and spectators all have roles to play The aim is to make the whole football experience more pleasant. so that referees stay in the game, instead of leaving each season in droves due to the bad language and even physical abuse they get from players and from the touchlines.

The Mercian League has volunteered to be one of the first in the country to introduce the new campaign and will be launching it on January 1, 2009.

Mercian Chairman George Silverman welcomed the new campaign and offered the league management committee's total support.

But he also said that whilst it was a good idea to launch such a campaign, it was up to the professionals in the game to lead by example, “It’s all very well asking ten-year-olds to respect the referee in their game of mini-soccer, but if they go home and watch Match of the Day and see Wayne Rooney screaming at the referee or an assistant referee, it becomes acceptable, whatever anybody says, and its impossible to tell them it’s unacceptable,” he said. “This kind of initiative will only work if it starts at the top and filters down to grassroots football.

“Last season one in three games we organised had to be played without a referee and that’s too many. But until there is respect for referees – at a similar level to that for referees in rugby union - we will continue to struggle to find new people willing to risk becoming referees."

The league is working towards FA Charter status and is acknowledged widely as a friendly league, where poor behaviour is a rarity, It offers competitive football for youngsters aged eight-16 and has more than 170 teams playing regularly in Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and the West Midlands.