As a referee I’ve been asked about fair play awards during tournaments (as opposed to a league competition) and I always found it a little difficult to really know how to approach it? 

It very often turned out that the team who were perhaps on the end of a few heavy defeats but kept going received the nominations ‍♂️when of course the team that achieved the most victories may well have played sportingly as well. 

Perhaps a potential way of truly reflecting fair play over a season is recording of blue/red cards awarded alongside team penalties accrued for not walking. That way a referee need only record and submit those details alongside the match result and thus take out the sympathy vote? 

Thanks, as always Mick - we are actually looking at using the refs score cards to record blue/red cards and penalties for cumulative running, but some on the committee actually want to go into more detail and count contact fouls as well...

Personally, perhaps going too far when you consider a contact free kick may be awarded for something that is only a low level careless challenge which had absolutely no deliberate intention involved? 

If there is a lot of contact offences during a game perhaps the refs should look for a card for persistent offending ? 

Interesting concept and wouldn’t it be brilliant if the team that wins the championship also wins the fair play , showing that it can be done without pushing the boundaries 

My view entirely about contact free kicks and their level of severity.  My personal view is that it should just be blue cards that count and persistent deliberate contact gets captured that way - and penalties for non-walking, but as said previously others on committee seem to want to 'double-count' offences, so count all fouls and blue cards and also count each individual running offence!

My view entirely about contact free kicks and their level of severity.  My personal view is that it should just be blue cards that count and persistent deliberate contact gets captured that way - and penalties for non-walking, but as said previously others on committee seem to want to 'double-count' offences, so count all fouls and blue cards and also count each individual running offence!