Foxes and Magpies show their Respect

On Saturday The FA was invited by Leicester City to use its Championship fixture with Newcastle United to promote the club’s support of the Respect Programme.

With the support of Leicestershire and Rutland CFA, local leagues and clubs were welcomed to the Walkers Stadium and recognised for their commitment to improve behaviour in football.

Prior to this important game both teams warmed up in Respect t-shirts, representatives of local leagues were presented with their Respect certificates and as kick-off approached the 5,500 fans in the family stand showed their support by holding up Respect Cards.

In the match programme FA Chief Executive Ian Watmore commented; "Since its launch RESPECT has made great progress. Perceptions may still be skewed but the reality is that in the professional leagues we are making inroads, where dissent cautions are down year-on-year and cases of harassment of match officials are almost negligible.

"In the amateur game there a long way to go, but still the signs are that we’ve stabilised what was a growing trend towards abusive behaviour."

He added: "Most positive of all we believe that RESPECT has re-established a route into refereeing and this year over 5,000 new referees have been welcomed on to parks pitches up and down the country.

"We now need to keep these referees and not lose them to intimidatory behaviour if we’re to make sure everyone who plays the game has a referee to make it a real game of football."

The match itself finished 0-0.