A FOOTBALL league assistant referee who preyed on teenage girls has been jailed for 13-and-a-half years.
Gareth Viccars, 47, was locked up behind bars for a string of child sexual abuse offences involving three 15-year-old schoolgirls.
Viccars previously pleaded guilty to 16 counts, including sexual communications with a child, meeting with a child following sexual grooming, causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and engaging in sexual activity with a child.
The offences spanned three years between November 2021 and October 2024 and involved three girls aged 15, Snaresbrook Crown Court previously heard.
On Thursday, Viccars was jailed for 13 and a half years with a further three and a half years on extended licence at the same court.
Viccars was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for life.
Addressing the referee, Judge Caroline English said: “You did deliberately target these three young victims and you did so on account of their ages at the material time.
“I am therefore quite satisfied that in all three cases you preyed upon young women that were vulnerable.
Viccars was an assistant referee at the time of offending.
He has worked as an official for League One clashes in the EFL alongside his day job as an estate agent.
The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the organisation responsible for managing all Premier League and EFL matches across England, said he was suspended “as soon as the allegations came to light”.
Viccars was not considered for appointments after his initial suspension.
The PGMOL has since removed him from the organisation’s list, it is believed.
It is understood the former assistant referee did not officiate during the last season.
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The judge said that despite Viccars’s guilty pleas and expressions of remorse, there remained a lack of acknowledgment from the defendant that he had “a sexual interest in female children”.
This interest was clear from the contents of messages sent to his victims and a statement from Viccars’s ex-girlfriend, which said he used to ask her to dress up in school uniform.
Viccars, who appeared in the dock wearing a dark green sweatshirt, nodded as the judge read out her sentencing remarks.
The prosecutor Charlotte Newell KC told the court Viccars had met his victims online through the messaging app Snapchat, telling one girl that talking on WhatsApp was “too risky”.
She said Viccars had lied and told one of his victims he was a teacher when they first started communicating and was aware that she was 15 years old.
The court heard he had abused another of his victims over a period of several years – taking her to football matches and told others he was “mentoring” her.
A scrapbook chronicling the two’s “relationship” that was made by the teenager, and given to Viccars, was handed to police and formed part of the evidence against him, the prosecutor said.
In court, Viccars watched the victim read out an impact statement during which she said he had been her “world” and that she had trusted him “completely” for almost three years.
Addressing her abuser, she said he had won her over with “kind words” and “attention” and had isolated her “in plain sight”.
“Now I know what you really wanted was someone young enough to manipulate,” she added.
After the sentencing, the Met Police said they believed there may be other victims of Viccars as he had been “spamming hundreds of girls on Snapchat”.
DCI Ross Morrell, who led the Met’s investigation, said: “He began with a profile of ‘sorry I think I’ve added the wrong person’, and then he would go in to lie, manipulate them, and then go on to abuse them.
“If anyone thinks they’ve been a victim, then please contact 101, reference this appeal.
“You will be entitled to specialist care, specialist advice, and you will be believed.”
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Gareth Viccars was jailed on Thursday at Snaresbrook Crown Court for a string of child sex offencesCredit: PA
MARTIN DUBRAVKA fell foul of the new rules over goalkeepers holding onto the ball too long.
The Burnley stopper was punished for taking an age to release it out of his hands inside four minutes against Spurs.
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Martin Dubravka was the first goalkeeper to fall foul of the new Premier League rules
New regulations cite that goalies cannot hold the ball for any longer than eight seconds.
Slovakian Dubravka, making his Clarets debut following his switch from Newcastle, was deemed to have taken longer than that and ref Michael Oliver intervened.
The whistler awarded a corner, as is the new rule, which Burnley managed to clear.
Spurs took the lead six minutes later, as Richarlison converted a cross from new signing Mohammed Kudus.
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With red welts scattered like landmarks of the war she’d just waged, Kelsey Plum let the microphone have it.
“I drive more than anyone in the league,” the Sparks guard said, voice taut. “So to shoot six free throws is f— absurd. And I got scratches on my face, I got scratches on my body, and these guards on the other teams get these ticky-tack fouls, and I’m sick of it.”
Plum played 41 minutes during an overtime loss to the Golden State Valkyries, during which she was awarded those six free throws. She is one of many WNBA players, coaches and fans who have vented frustration over what they see as inconsistent and unreliable officiating this season.
Yet, within the walls of the league’s officiating office, there is steadfast belief that referees are doing their jobs well.
Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon questions a referee’s call during the game against the Sparks at Crypto.com Arena on July 29.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“Overall, I’m very pleased with the work this year,” said Monty McCutchen, the head of referee training and development for all NBA leagues.
But McCutchen and Sue Blauch, who oversees WNBA referee performance and development, aren’t blind to the backlash — acknowledging “some high-profile misses that we need to own on our end.”
To do so, they pointed to an officiating analysis program through which 95% of games are watched live, with every play graded by internal and independent reviewers. Those evaluations are used to chart each referee’s performance over time.
Teams can flag up to 30 plays for review per game through a league portal — including isolated calls or themes spanning multiple games. League officials respond with rulings on each clip and compile curated playlists by call type, delivering them directly to the referees.
“There’s no shortage of feedback,” McCutchen said.
But the WNBA’s structural backbone of officiating differs from the NBA in significant ways. With just 35 referees, all of whom moonlight calling NCAA or G League games, the WNBA relies on part-timers earning $1,538 per game as rookies, with each official calling 20 to 34 contests per season.
“You’re working three very different kinds of basketball,” said Jacob Tingle, director of sport management at Trinity University who has conducted research on officiating networks and pathways. “The reason the NBA or MLB works is because that’s all you do — you’re working the same kind of game only.”
The WNBA lacks a centralized replay center, a developmental league to groom talent and shuffles crew combinations from game to game — a patchwork system that can strain referees expected to deliver consistency.
Sparks guard Kelsey Plum questions the official’s out-of-bounds call during a game against the Las Vegas Aces at Crypto.com Arena on July 29.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“When you don’t have group cohesion, you don’t have the same level of trust in your partners,” said David Hancock, a professor who studies the psychology of sports officiating. “We’ve done one study — when referees felt more connected to their group, they also felt they performed better.”
McCutchen said teams get a verdict on the calls they send for review. But beyond that, there’s no insight into grading or transparency about patterns the league has researched. So when it seems a whistle has been swallowed during a game, players and coaches are left searching for consistency.
“You don’t know in the WNBA anymore,” said Joshua Jackson, a Louisiana State University professor who studies media and athlete perception. “I can’t tell when I’m watching a game exactly what this foul call is going to be. I’ll hear the whistle and think, ‘OK, maybe it’s a reach-in and then suddenly it’s a view for a flagrant one instead? Wait, how did we get here?’”
The whistle has become one of the WNBA’s biggest wild cards. Angel Reese called it “diabolical.” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said after a fourth-quarter letdown led to a loss that the game was “stolen from us.” Belgian guard Julie Allemand told The Times she felt more “protected” playing in EuroBasket. And Napheesa Collier, one of the stars of the 2025 season, warned “it’s getting worse.”
The whistle, or lack thereof, might echo louder in 2026, when the WNBA begins a $2.2-billion, 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon and NBCUniversal — each of whom will air more than 125 games a year across TV and streaming networks.
Nicole LaVoi, who helms the Tucker Center — a research hub focused on advocating for girls and women in sports — said the narrative surrounding female athletes forces them to walk a tightrope: speak up and risk being dismissed as an emotional woman or stay quiet and let the league’s image unravel.
“This is a broader, contextual, systemic issue,” LaVoi said. “It’s not just about bad refs making bad calls. This is a much larger problem within a system where women’s sport has been undervalued and underappreciated for decades.”
Many players have ignored concerns about the perception they whine too much about officiating, arguing the inconsistency in calls is dangerous.
Lucas Seehafer, a professor and kinesiologist at Medical University of South Carolina who tracks WNBA injuries, said players have suffered 173 injuries this season and missed 789 games, entering Saturday’s games.
Sparks forward Cameron Brink reacts toward an official after no foul was called after the ball was stripped from her as she was driving to the basket at Crypto.com Arena on July 29.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Injuries are undoubtedly multifactorial, Seehafer said. Still, inconsistent whistles can leave players unsure of how much contact to expect — forcing them into unfamiliar movements or hesitation. And that can lend itself to awkward landings, a key contributor in lower-extremity injuries.
“The athletes strive on consistency and mechanical efficiency,” said Nirav Pandya, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at UC San Francisco. “When you don’t know how much contact’s going to be allowed, it does throw off that rhythm, which increases your injury risk.”
When Caitlin Clark suffered a groin injury in mid-July, her brother — in a now-deleted X post — blamed the officials for letting too much contact slide.
“People go watch the WNBA because of the talent,” LaVoi said, “and when the talent is sitting on the bench, that’s not very exciting to fans.”
While critics are quick to call out officiating, referees are navigating a structure stretched thin.
Brenda Hilton, founder of Officially Human — an organization dedicated to improving the treatment of sports officials — said 70%-80% of officials quit within their first three years, largely due to online abuse.
“The people that are doing the work are people, they are fallible,” LaVoi said. “The players are fallible as well, so are the coaches. So can we get back some compassion for the humanity of the people doing it, and appreciate the fact that they love what they do? They’re not doing it because they’re getting huge NIL deals and branding opportunities.”
NBA and WNBA officiating leaders have not announced any plans for changes to their system, so the stress will probably continue among players, coaches, fans and those who control the whistles.
