Mind your language, coach

It doesn’t get any worse for St Lawrence’s (Borivli) MSSA campaign. With five defeats out of six games including a 0-3 loss to defending champions Don Bosco, Matunga, on Saturday, they face an uphill task. However, it isn’t their poor form that’s in the spotlight, instead their coach Louis Fernandes is being spoken about for all wrong reasons.

It is difficult to ignore the high decibel levels that Fernandes is capable of reaching no matter where one sits at the ground. And the words he uses are far from encouraging. It is difficult to understand the point Fernandes is trying to make with the choicest of abuses and expletives, not only to his side, but to the referees and match officials as well. His half time team talk included words that boys of that age should not be subjected to.

What’s interesting is Fernandes is a referee himself and officiates in the second division of the U-16 MSSA tournament.

After a game against St. Stanislaus on July 30, Fernandes slapped a player after they lost the game 1-0. During that match, he abused the referee and even though he was given a warning, Louis  didn’t stop abusing.

When asked about this harsh treatment that he vents out to his players, Fernandes calmly said, “ I am not going to change my approach and I believe this is the best way to get maximum out of the team.”

As per the international football body, FIFA, rules, a coach isn’t allowed to abuse his players, and if he does so, the referee can issue the coach a yellow card or make him sit in the stands. But the referees at MSSA don’t appear to be doing anything to coax Fernandes into mending his ways. When asked, Elvis Nunes, who was officiating Friday’s game, gave a strange explanation. He said he did not understand Fernandes’s language and thus cannot file a report against him.

Antonio Pinto, secretary of the Bombay Referees Association (BRA), says, “We cannot take any action unless there is a report filed by the referee.”

If all this is not enough trouble for Fernandes, the coach of Don Bosco, Leslie Machado has complained to the authorities about Fernandes’s comments during the game. Machado said, “It gets really annoying to see him abuse his kids so much. What’s really sad is that he was instigating his players to commit fouls against our team. This is horrible for football.”

Going by what people see when Fernandes speaks, rather shouts, the message is certainly not getting delivered to the boys.

A boy, who did not want to be named for fear of the coach’s wrath, said, “It makes us very angry, but we cannot say anything to him. Now we are so used to it  that it does not trouble us any more, though we get a little irritated.”

Sports psychologist BP Baam said that the last thing a coach should do, is to abuse these young footballers. “For the children, the coach is a role model and his opinion matters a lot. If the coach constantly abuses them, the kids will start condemning themselves and doubt their ability to perform, which will certainly affect them in the long run.”

MSSA football secretary Anslem Alphonso promised to look into the matter. “We are going to take strict action against him,” he said.