Abstract

The entire league, 12.400 matches of the season 1980-1981 of the senior amateur soccer section in the province of Limburg was subjected to analysis. All disciplinary files (N = 1.750) were included. A file consists of, one or more offences, officially reported by the referee in one match. In these files 2.678 individual disciplinary cases were recorded. Not only the study deals with agression-theories, but pays attention also to the position of the referee with aspects of the role and cognitive theory. Comparing matches with and without disciplinary files, the most important variables are status of the referee and divisionlevel. That means official referees (compared with unofficial ones who are enlisted when the number of matches outnumber the available referees) report more offences than their unofficial colleagues; on a high class level occur more disciplinary files. Official referees penalize more offences against players; unofficial ones tend to more sanctions against their own position. A very important practical conclusion is, that a policy is urged that rather aims at sanctions during the match and more attention to the instruction of official and unofficial referees. Verf.-Referat