Wayne Barnes warns online trolls ‘things are changing’ as he strives to help other officials avoid the ‘crap’ he faced
Referee Wayne Barnes during the Rugby World Cup 2023 final match at the Stade de France in Paris, France
The day Wayne Barnes became a Test match referee he sent a player off and went to bed thinking he was “going to die”.
The day he finished his Test match career he sent a player off and went to bed being told he was going to die.
Bookends to an unrivalled 111-cap innings which appear similar but are no such thing.
Test debut 18 years ago today
Barnes is looking back on a career which began on the island of Fiji 18 years ago today. Not because he is feeling nostalgic, rather with a view to ensuring tomorrow’s referees do not have to experience all that he did.
It was the Englishman’s choice to go “kava for kava” with Fiji captain Simon Raiwalui after his debut in 2006, so the pain which came his way that day was entirely self-inflicted.
“I just felt like I was going to die.”
But what followed the red card he showed All Blacks captain Sam Cane in a World Cup final New Zealand then lost 17 years later was as unsolicited as it was horrifying.
Death threats, promises to burn his house down. Worst of all, threats of violence towards his family.
“It’s now gone to the next level,” he says. “When it’s going directly into family’s personal or professional email accounts, when it’s going onto their locked down social media feeds, that’s not fair. Particularly for the kids.”
Barnes returned from France and hung up his whistle. But walk away from the issue he has not. In fact, he is engaged in the fight as never before.
So it is that, on this latest anniversary of where it all began, he is choosing to spell out what the future is going to look like for trolls who, for too long, have abused with impunity, secure in the anonymity afforded them by social media.
“Things are changing,” he warns. “There are ways of identifying individuals now. We’re already seeing it.”
The headlines that used to be made by the abusers are now being written by the abused. Just last week Toto Wolff, principal of F1 outfit Mercedes, went on the attack against abuse aimed at his team, reporting the matter to the police.
Wolff’s combative stance follows Brentford striker Neal Maupay going after an individual who made online death threats to him and his family.
“The Premier League have a troll unit,” says Barnes. “They identified the troll, who kept resurfacing. They’d shut down the account and he’d continue to abuse Neal.
“They identified him to Singapore. That individual now has a criminal conviction. He was sentenced to a nine-month probation and community service.”
Long-standing problem
Rugby has a long-standing problem with trolls, but is no longer prepared to turn the other cheek.
Earlier this year Dragons winger Ashton Hewitt went public with racist abuse he had received, posting a screenshot on his X account. The guilty party had his account permanently suspended.
Ugo Monye also reported a man he accused of racially abusing him after a match in Exeter. Angus Beukes has a date in the dock next month.
Barnes warns that this is only the start and the days of suffering in silence are over.
“The more I talk about it,” he says. “The more Neal, Ashton and Ugo talk about it, governing bodies will have to do something.
“We put a lot of pressure on World Rugby to do something and they responded by becoming one of the first governing bodies to engage with [AI firm] Signify. When disagreement becomes abuse they are able to identify individuals who send this nonsense.”
Since the World Cup, prosecutions, previously largely unheard of, have begun in earnest. There are some 30 cases ongoing in five different jurisdictions.
“The most high profile case has been someone based in Australia who was prosecuted and got a criminal conviction on the back of abusing one of my match officials’ colleagues at the World Cup,” says Barnes.
New Zealand-born Aaron Isaia pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to menace or harass via online communication. Although spared a conviction he was handed a A$1,000 good behaviour bond for 12 months.
A couples of other cases in New Zealand relate to minors abusing a match official. Charges were not brought but the individuals wrote letters of apology after being questioned by police.
“At the end of the day it’s not the sentence that’s the important thing, it’s the publicity around it,” said a World Rugby spokesperson. “That’s the deterrent. We’re trying to move the needle bit by bit.”
Barnes says the reasons trolls behave as they do on social media are four-fold.
“One, you don’t know the victim,” he says. “Two, it’s easier to abuse someone that you don’t know. Three, you think you’ve got anonymity. Four, you think there’s no consequence. Add all those things together and people think they can say what they want.
“If I go to the pub tonight and someone comes up to me and says some of the things that are said online, one they’re not anonymous and two, there will be consequences. Probably from my mates, not from me.
There are now consequences
“What you achieve by using companies like Signify is people realise they’re no longer anonymous and there are now consequences.
“Go back to the days of people drinking and driving home. 30 years ago were people really taking that seriously? I think everyone now does, one because they understand the effect on the victim, two, there is a consequence. If you drink-drive we’re going to ban you.
“And as soon as you see one person being banned in your community, as soon as that becomes well known and presented across the country, then people think twice about it. It’s now a taboo.”
There is a long way to go. Leicester Tigers recently took the unprecedented step of threatening formal action against “season ticket holders or supporters identified as directing abusive or threatening language towards individuals”.
“Some sports clubs are now thinking what can we do as an organisation ourselves rather than just accepting a legal or criminal consequence,” adds Barnes.
“Arsenal, for example, have identified some of their members, season ticket holders, who have racially abused some of their athletes. They’ve now had those season tickets torn up and been told ‘we don’t want you as part of the Arsenal family’.”
Make no mistake, the athletes fighting back against this modern day curse are serious.
“The criminal justice system moves slowly but we can look at new ingenious ways of creating a legal consequence,” Barnes explains. “For example, Cease and Desist letters to say if you write this again we now know who you are and you will be in breach of a court order.
“We can immediately go to the court and put an injunction on you. And if you breach that you’re in contempt of court which is an automatic criminal conviction.
“You can bring injunctions against people to say if you send this again you’re in breach of the injunction and we’d also like the costs of bringing this injunction against you. So a financial cost against an individual.”
Barnes adds: “I want to do something to help others, to make it better for the next generation. I want to do something about the crap that followed [me] after the World Cup.
“You accept in your job as a referee, people are going to disagree with you, people are going to dislike what you do. I’m a lawyer and a referee and I realise that’s an unpopular double.
“As part of my job as a ref I have to send people off. As a lawyer I’ve prosecuted people who have ended up going to prison. That’s not popular. You accept that. You’re not there to be popular.
“But when you see [English football ref] Anthony Taylor and his family getting harassed by Roma fans travelling back from last season’s Europa League final, that’s different level.
“What we are putting in place is the ability to say we don’t have to put up with this crap any more.”
