Official recounts harassment and unequal treatment in court
A prominent officer has stated before a court that a football referee coach “pushed her hard” and that his behavior was influenced by her gender.
Lisa Benn, 34, claimed to have suffered harassment and to have unfairly lost her position as an international referee after filing a complaint.
The Women’s Super League (WSL) official complained of being groped on a pitch in 2023 by Steve Child, coach of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) and former Premier League assistant.
During her testimony before an employment tribunal in South London on Monday, she alleged that Mr. Child also told her: “You’ve been marked.”
A PGMOL investigation determined that Mr. Child’s behavior did not meet the threshold for disciplinary action.
Ms. Benn alleges that the organization’s head of arbitration, Howard Webb, and his wife Bibi Steinhaus-Webb, who was then the head of female referees, said that she would not be punished for filing the complaint.
However, in his statement, he wrote that, after his complaint, PGMOL did not recommend him as favorably as it had previously.
Mrs. Benn said this cost her a prestigious place on FIFA’s list of international referees.
A tournament organized by PGMOL took place to train staff on VAR, which was not yet used in women’s football, on March 29, 2023.
The program was delayed due to a serious injury and Ms. Benn said that Mr. Child took on a leadership role, but “was nervous, stressed, running around everywhere”.
Mrs. Benn said the coach grabbed her arm and “pushed her hard” towards the court.
She acknowledged that Mr. Child said “something like ‘come on, come on’ to speed up the start of the game, and said that she responded by putting her palm up and telling him to “calm down”.
Jesse Crozier, representing PGMOL, asked: “By saying ‘come on, come on’, would you have put your arm behind you and pushed her onto the pitch at the same time?”
Mrs. Benn rejected the statement, saying: “That definitely didn’t happen.”Lisa Benn has stated before a court that she was harassed and unfairly lost her position as an international referee after filing a complaint with the PGMOL.The court heard that the “temperature was high” during the match and Mr. Child instructed a fourth official, Ruby Sykes, to tell Ms. Benn to “kill the game”.
This caused Ms. Benn to say “don’t tell me how to arbitrate” and “go to hell”, which was directed at Mr. Child but spoken through a communication system to Ms. Sykes, the panel was told.
“I’ve never had someone yell at me over the communicators to tell me how to referee; I’m a trusted referee, I referee at the highest level, this was an under-19 match,” said Ms. Benn.
Later she added: “He felt superior, he felt he could come and tell me how to referee, he groped me on the field of play; I would never have done that to a male referee.”
Mr. Crozier asked her: “It seems that you are offended because the referee coach gives you training instructions while you are refereeing.”
She said: “It was a distraction because, as you mentioned, the game was difficult, the game was challenging; there were many things happening in the game that required my attention.”
Mrs. Benn said she was also adapting to “new VAR principles” that were unfamiliar to her.
She got emotional when she later told the panel: “It made me feel inferior, as a referee and as a human being, and that’s not okay.”
When asked if he had seen him act that way with other referees, he said: “I have done it with female referees, yes, I have not done it with male referees.”
The official said there was a “massive fight” at the end of the game, caused by a player who hit another with his head.
Mr. Child then grabbed her arm and said “you have been marked” and “you are stubborn”, he said.
“He was so angry that his eyes were popping out of his head,” he told the panel.
Mrs. Benn admitted that in response she “shouted ‘What’s your problem?’ in his direction”.
“He didn’t turn around, he just walked away,” he said.
Mr. Crozier asked him: “If she had been dragged, grabbed, and pushed in a training tournament with dozens and dozens of people, someone would have seen it.”
She said there would be video recordings of the event, but she hasn’t seen any.
The lawyer said that such an incident “would have been noticed, wouldn’t it?”
She said: “No, I don’t agree.”
The court continues.
