A referee coach has denied “manhandling” Girls’s Tremendous League referee Lisa Benn after she instructed an employment tribunal that he “forcefully pushed” her throughout a match.
Benn, 34, claims she was pushed and threatened by Steve Baby throughout a event organised by Skilled Recreation Match Officers Restricted (PGMOL) to coach workers on video assistant referees (VAR) in March 2023.
English soccer’s refereeing physique investigated the criticism however discovered Kid’s behaviour didn’t meet the brink for disciplinary motion.
In his tribunal witness assertion, quoted to the panel on Wednesday, Baby mentioned “100% I didn’t seize” her, it was a “guiding arm if something” however “I do not recall placing any bodily contact on her”.
“I frivolously put an arm throughout her again in a way of ‘let’s go’,” the previous Premier League assistant referee added.
Baby refuted Benn’s accusation that his remedy of her was “as a result of she is a lady”.
Kick-off had been delayed by an earlier harm and a south London employment tribunal heard Baby was attempting to hurry up the beginning of play.
He denied grabbing Benn a second time and saying “your card has been marked” after a mass brawl broke out on the finish of the fractious youth recreation.
Carla Fischer, for Benn, mentioned: “A six-foot man who’s confused, who has been instructed by the claimant to sit back, bodily shifting a five-foot girl on to a pitch.”
She added: “There’s completely no approach this contact might be something aside from grabbing and manhandling, is there?”
Baby replied: “That is not right.”
He additionally denied intimidating Benn within the resort reception at a coaching camp they each attended on 19 August, 2023, saying: “I believe that may be a confusion on Lisa’s half.”
Benn claims she unfairly lost her position as a Fifa worldwide referee as a result of she complained about his behaviour to PGMOL.
She alleged she had been instructed by the organisation’s chief refereeing officer, Howard Webb, and his spouse Bibi Steinhaus-Webb – then the pinnacle of ladies’s referees – she wouldn’t be punished for coming ahead.
“There’s a worry within the ladies’s group to lift grievances, to lift issues, due to the worry of penalties,” Benn instructed the listening to on Tuesday.
The tribunal continues.
