An investigation of the stress factors and causes of football referees in terms of gender

This study aims to determine the stress factors experienced by football referees and to determine the factors that stress female referees more than male referees and to investigate the reasons why these factors stress female referees. Nowadays, football refereeing is becoming increasingly popular and is also in demand by women. Refereeing, in addition to being a physical action, is also an action that has mental and psychological aspects. Considering all these together, refereeing brings with it multiple stress factors. In addition, it is known that female referees are not widely accepted in our society, where women are marginalized and seen as men's work, especially in a branch such as football. For this reason, it is necessary to examine what the stress factors experienced by football referees are, in terms of gender, and at what level they are. In the light of all this information, the factors that push football referees to stress were determined by applying the scale of factors that push football referees to stress to 511 referees who actively refereed in the 2022-2023 season. In addition, the sub-problems of this problem, "factors that make female football referees more stressed than male football referees", "main reasons for the stress factors experienced by female football referees" and "male football referees' opinions about the factors that make female football referees stressed" were examined with 20 randomly selected referees. It was examined in detail using a semi-structured interview form. As a result of the quantitative data of the study; It was observed that the first three factors that caused both male and female referees to experience stress were "physical problem on the day of the match", "insufficient security" and "importance of the match". In the qualitative part of the study, the factors that make female referees more stressed than male referees are "audience pressure", "observer presence", "verbal objection by the players", "physical problem on the day of the match", "making wrong and erroneous decisions", "trio". "having communication and decision problems" and "being in the wrong place in the field". When the results obtained from the quantitative data of the research were compared with the results obtained from the qualitative data, it was seen that the factor of discomfort with the presence of observers turned into a source of motivation rather than a stress factor for both male and female referees. When the factors such as audience pressure, verbal objection by the players, physical problems on the day of the match, being in the wrong place on the field, making wrong and erroneous decisions, and having communication and decision problems with the trio were examined, it was seen that the quantitative and qualitative data of the study overlapped.