Referees are there to do the same as the players at the end of the day, they are there to do their job and the last thing they deserve is any abuse for it.
The Mike Dean situation which has developed this week is totally unacceptable and no referee or player should receive death threats for simply doing what they are paid to do.
People don't realise sometimes that in any professional sport that without a referee you couldn't possibly play the game, it's that simple, and credit to Mike Dean for taking the decision to step away from action this weekend.
So why in this day and age do we still see so much abuse towards officials and players?
Social media is a huge problem now where people can voice their opinions and say whatever they want to say.
Of course the account can get reported and banned but people can just quite easily go and create another account and continue the abuse.
The talks about having to verify your account would be a good start to try and help stop it, but does it really stop the problem?
Abuse towards players and officials will still continue and I think if people had a better understanding as to how hard it can be to officiate a game they might sympathise more.
Being an official in rugby league itself, you have to be able to take it all in and assess everyone situation possible as the game is played, you can't even switch off for a second in case you miss something but at the same time, everyone is human, and everyone makes mistakes.
For players it's a lot easier process where they just turn up and play and they have also trained for the game where as officials you can be as fit as possible, but no-one knows what could play out in those 80 or 90 minutes and Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville proved how hard it was when they gave officiating a try.
Mike Dean has been a top official for years now but what exactly do people think giving abuse towards him is going to achieve?
It's not going to change anything and all it's going to do is create a bigger problem for themselves where their account will be banned and eventually it could all backfire massively when as Mark Halsey said in The Sun this week, abuse could drive officials out of football.
There isn't really an immediate solution to the problems of abuse, the Kick It Out campaign has helped stop racial abuse, but the other week there we see cases of it rise again when Romain Sawyers was abused on social media after his side West Brom lost to Manchester City at the end of January.
Manchester United duo Anthony Martial and Axel Tuanzebe have also received racial abuse and it again links back to social media like the referees abuse.
Official abuse is unacceptable, and so is the racist abuse which players have received and let's just hope that one day times will eventually change for the better when awful incidents like this cease to exist in the world of sport.
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