Sebass the Referee

A year ago Chabal's autobiography, Ma petite étoile (My little star), was published. In it the big man who in 2007 was the face of the World Cup, was sharply critical of Top 14 referees, saying, amongst other things: "The referees in the Top 14 are nothings. They make me mad." He said that they were unashamedly biased and not professional and extended his criticism to referees' assistants and to specific cases. His case was referred to a disciplinary committee of the Ligue Nationale de Rugby where he was initially suspended for 60 days. This suspension was reduced on condition that he got officially involved in refereeing.

As a 'punishment' Chabal was to take referees' courses under the aegis of the Ile-de-France referees' society, pass a referees' exam and referee eight matches, at least three of them at Under-17 level, before 31 December 2011.

Chabal attended the required eight courses on the laws and refereeing and in suit and tie he sat for the exam. On Tuesday he was informed by letter that he had passed it. He now has a licence as a trainee referee, which gives him the right to referee matches involving young players, and he now embarks on the third aspect of his 'punishment', refereeing eight matches. The first of these matches will be at Béthune rugby club, southeast of Calais.

France at one stage introduced a punishment for players who struck a referee - life suspension or five years as an active referee. There have been cases where the player stayed on as a referee when his five years were up.

Sounds like a very good idea to me, show how hard it is to be a referee and get it right all the time. Maybe the punishment should be extended for coaches who complain every game and dare I say it for a few posters?!

This is really cool. Fantastic idea, and with Chabal makes it a fantastic story. Thanks for sharing.

When he has served his time, I wonder if he will grant an interterview and tell us his thoughts how it went.
I also wonder if we get to see an interview from the kids telling us how good they thought he was.
That said, I don't think a 16 year old kid would argue with that referee.

I really can't imagine Chabal doing anything other then eating children raw.

Sounds like a really good idea though, would be interested to see it used more widely and definately should get FES in there to have a go! He can twit away all he wants about it then.

hmmm is an intresting idea. Very good, should deffo be introduced him.
Reffing is incredibly hard, hats off to all the people who volunteer up and down the country on their weekends.

Brilliant
Chabal might carry on and really show them how this refereeeing business is done.

I can see these matches being the best behaved of the season!