Thought that at the time, it was clearly not welcomed and deserves retrospective action. It wasn't banter, and needs addressing.
Serious point. I’m really not sure. I’ve seen players give the ref a pat of the back or shoulder many times And no one bats an eyelid. I don’t know if Aguero would have done the same to a bloke though I doubt it would have been a shoulder squeeze in the same way. I don’t think it was smart but I don’t think it’s as bad as some of the posts on Twitter have made out. I didn’t think it was worthy of a red card under normal circumstances. Of course has Massey gone down clutching her neck like she had been shot like Lamella did recently the the ref would have had no choice. But she is far more professional than that.
Hate it when players surround officials and touch them - whether they are male or female should make no difference. Booking/ sending off depending on nature of incident. It needs clamping down on. Look at the Bristol City Players’ reaction to the penalty yesterday - just as bad. Think Massey did the right thing getting on with it. This incident should be taken in context of hundreds of other similar incidents, and the gender of the official is irrelevant.
Massey is great. She's quite possibly the best lino we have. She's excellent at getting the big decisions right that are looked back at with VAR. On social media she's quite universally praised by fans. I remember a few games she did at Oakwell before reaching the prem and being impressed then with her decision making.
I've see players tap a ref on the back or arm in a respectful manner after a decision. This was'nt respectful quite the opposite he might have well pat her backside, he would like many have said never put his hand/arm on a male officials neck so you can't ignore gender he was out of order. Needs to apologize
It wasn't similar to a pat on the back, watch a longer clip and look at his face and body language - he was mouthing off at her about the decision 2 seconds earlier. It's clearly not an "ok lino, let's get on with it," gesture, it's an attempt to intimidate. https://streamja.com/MBONl
It's one of those where it's both nothing and something. Where you could be made to feel like you're making a mountain out of a molehill by those who will insists it's nothing. But there's something about where he touches her and the pressure he applies that makes you uncomfortable and you know in your bones it isn't right but you don't know how to describe what it is. But it's there. Simplest way out of such a situation: you touch an official, it's a red card, end of.
Red card? Really? It's an innocuous touch, nothing sinister, no malicious intent, if we start dishing red cards out for incidents such as these we might as well just pack the game in, when Dicanio pushed that ref, that was a red card.
Alternatively players could try not touching people they have no right to touch. Never realised man handling officials was part of the game and stopping it would result in football being dead as we know it.
Why did he feel the need to do it then? He clearly wasn't happy with her so why else would he touch her if not to try and make a point or intimidate? As Jay says it just feels wrong. It's the type of touch you see from a sleazy bloke in a nightclub trying to chat up an uninterested woman, it's got that same feel about it.
I wonder if those saying there's nothing wrong with it would be happy for him to touch their daughter that way. Easiest rule in the world is "don't touch officials' the punishment for doing so intentionally is a red card.
What everybody is missing here is, she had the right if she wasn't happy with what was said or done to bring it to the referees attention and have action taken the fact she didn't says to me she wasn't concerned. If she didn't think what happened warranted action being taken maybe that's where it should be left.
I don't think it's a good argument to say that because she didn't get him sent off it's fine. Maybe she doubted herself in the moment. Maybe she realised that if she'd got him sent off there'd be a load of people who would criticise her as being oversensitive (some are in this thread) and open herself up to all kinds of abuse on social media. Maybe she didn't want to draw attention to herself, especially having experienced the focus on her as part of the Gray/Keys sexism thing a while back. Maybe she realised that given all that and the fact it's on camera she should wait and let the FA handle it.
If she's concerned about getting criticised for the decisions she makes and that effects those decisions she really shouldn't be doing the job because it comes with the territory I'm afraid. Also just noticed the woman whose tweet is the basis of the OP just happens to be a Liverpool fan I wonder if she'd be quite so insistant on a ban if it would have been Salah not Aguero
Does this apply to other workplaces out of interest? If a woman doesn't feel comfortable immediately calling out a colleague for inappropriate touching for whatever reason then maybe they should just leave and the colleague should be exempt from later scrutiny?