Ontario Soccer is introducing body cameras to curb ref abuse, but some say culture change starts with adults

Adrian Tanjala has faced a lot of abuse since starting his soccer refereeing career at 15. But nothing could compare to what the 21-year-old had to deal with in 2021, when a fight broke out in an under-18 match he was reffing.

"I'm putting [my red card] back in my pocket and before I can turn around, both teams have just sort of converged at the fight," he told The Current's Matt Galloway. "Everyone's fighting everyone. I'm getting hit several times."

"Parents, they've come from the bleachers onto the field — you'd think they'd pull the kids away from the fight. They're not doing that. They're actually participating in the fight themselves."

With the situation out of control, Tanjala left the pitch and headed toward his car — but not without a crowd of players and parents following him, yelling obscenities and blaming him for the fight.

Tanjala was just 19 years old then. He's now the head referee of North Toronto Soccer Club, but he said that abuse put him on the brink of quitting the profession.

"I cried in the car for an hour … once I made it home," he said. "Then I sent out a few emails to try and see what we can do, how we can deal with reporting it. But it was very disturbing."

Tanjala didn't have a way to deal with the incident then, but Ontario Soccer is introducing a new tool it hopes will curb that behaviour in the future. As part of its effort to tackle aggressive behaviour and abuse at games toward referees, Ontario Soccer has announced a pilot project that will see some of officials wear body cameras during matches.

The project is in partnership with Reveal Media, which will provide Ontario Soccer with 50 cameras to use in both youth and adult soccer matches, starting in July. 

"We're taking an initiative