Provided here are guidelines for handling unruly spectator behavior. There have been situations where the officials have made a bad situation worse by engaging in conversation with these unruly spectators.


Officials assigned to officiate a contest are responsible for the conduct of the contest. Controlling crowds and crowd reactions are not within the officials’ province.

That responsibility falls to game administrators. If spectators begin to interfere with the conduct of a contest; cause an official to become distracted through continual and unrelenting verbal abuse; or berate players, coaches, or officials in an unacceptable or vulgar manner, officials should stop the action, report the spectator(s) to the home school administration or the nearest uniformed security officer and ask that they be restrained or removed from the facility. If the home school administration or uniformed security is unwilling or unable to comply and the official does not believe the contest can be safely continued, the official must declare the contest ended at that point. If no game administrator is present, as is often the case at subvarsity contests, officials may have to call on coaches or other school personnel to remove an unruly spectator.


Officials should never engage directly with spectators. Under no circumstance should an official ever confront, challenge, rebuke, or threaten a spectator, or make gestures of any kind toward a spectator before, during, or after a contest.
Officials should respond to threats and vulgarity from spectators by using the same good judgment they utilize when ruling on a key play. Locate the game administrator, uniformed security personnel, coach, or other school personnel and request that the unruly spectator be removed. Addressing the spectator directly is a no-win situation and often serves to make a bad situation worse.
In summary, officials should not deal directly with spectators, but may ask game management to deal with disruptive spectators. The game may be temporarily halted until the situation is resolved, but terminating a game because of problems with spectators must be an absolute last resort. Following the ejection of a spectator, please file an incident report with CHSAA.