The parents of girls who play for a traveling Maryland soccer team were forced to watch their daughters from 100 yards away as a punishment for their behavior at a previous game, The Washington Post reported.
The Washington Area Girls Soccer League banned the moms and dads from the sidelines for two games Sunday after a parent from the Bethesda Legacy travel team reportedly yelled at a referee about a call made last season.
After several snide remarks were made and the father started to "raise his voice," another Bethesda parent yelled at the referee's daughter, "Your father should be fired!", according to the minutes of a disciplinary hearing on the incident.
"There was a game where our parents were a little bit vocal about the refereeing. . . . Things can get emotional, but you have to keep up the sportsmanlike spirit," Legacy's manager, Mark Lauda, told the Post. "We're not a problem team at all. It was just one thing that happened."
The league's disciplinary committee ruled that the parents violated the league's code of conduct, the paper reported.
Some of the team's parents said they understood that they should set good examples for their children.
"We accepted our punishment, and we're abiding by it," said Philip Page, who was not at the game when the offense happened, but was watching his daughter play Sunday.
"One of the functions of sports is to teach sportsmanship. When we as parents violate that, the girls need to see there are consequences to those actions."
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