The school says it's due to rise of abuse of soccer referees
Brock University is taking action against verbal and physical assaults of soccer referees both on and off the field.
Professor of Sport Management Shannon Kerwin tells us they're working with Ontario Soccer to have referees wear body cameras, much like some police forces do.
Research will include recording during a game, to see what extent the camera bounces on the refs body while running. "Whether there's any interference in terms of the recording that's happened.... particularly in connecting the video that is created with the reports that the referees are engaging in, if there's an incident."
She says 50 referees are taking part in this experiment.
The abuse has gotten worse. "That's kinda where we are as a research team... it's unfortunate that this is the state of sport, in particular soccer, but certainly this is common I think around referee maltreatment and official maltreatment around sports."
She says they're about to start of a data collection period.
She also says signs posted at games don't seem to work.
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