In the twenty-first episode of the Just Checking In Podcast, we spoke to Senior Referee Officer at the English Football Association, Farai Hallam.
Farai is a qualified professional referee and a former professional footballer having played for Stevenage before several injuries curtailed his career before he was released by the club and forced him to change career.
Referees across the English football pyramid face abuse both verbal and in some extremely rare cases physical by players on the pitch. They also face a barrage of abuse by fans on social media platforms as well as by pundits when they make the wrong decision.
In this case, we wanted to show that referees are human beings too, with their own mental health to manage.
We chatted to Farai about his football journey, both playing and refereeing, racism in football as well as incidents of racism he faced whilst playing the game and his mental health journey.
We also discussed the interview he did for the Metro for journalist Natalie Morris as part of her ‘Mixed Up’ feature, which is a weekly series that aims to elevate the under-heard voices of the mixed-race population in the UK.
You can read that article in full here.
As always, #itsokaytovent
