Van-Tam: Abuse 'wrecking' grass-roots football

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The chair of the Lincolnshire FA, Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, says a big increase in the number of incidents of abuse and discrimination towards match officials, players and spectators is wrecking the sport at grass-roots level. Prof. Van-Tam says he didn't realise how 'persistent and difficult' the scale of the problem was, and that a major issue was that much of it was directed at younger match officials. He's called for a range of measures to tackle discrimination, including abusive parents being sanctioned rather than the clubs they're connected with.