This is Not Soccer.

This week’s Worst Thing in Football is actually this week’s Best Thing in Rugby Union. Referee Nigel Owens makes himself perfectly clear to Tobias Botes after Treviso’s South African Scrum-half decided to appeal to Owens during the course of play. Owens’ response?

I don’t think we’ve met before, but I’m the referee on this field, not you. Stick to your job and I will do mine.

If I hear you shouting for anything again, I’m going to be penalizing you. This is not soccer, is that clear? Back you go and get on with the game…

You know what this is? That is the response that a full grown man gives. Yet, it must deliver a certain truth. Why does it evoke emotion? Most likely it is because Owens’ formula is a perfect complimentary equation. His words prove themselves. It is not soccer, clearly, but not because of Botes’ undermining. The unquestionable reason that the viewer of this one-minute clip knows it’s not soccer has nothing to do with scrums or lineouts. Rather, no one who has witnessed a hand-full of association football matches could ever confuse Owens’ bold and reasonable assessment as having originated within the mind of a top-tier soccer referee.

There’s no point trying to stamp it out in schools, because when pupils go home and watch Wayne Rooney or other players swearing at a referee, they are going to do it.

Referees in soccer tend to ignore players who abuse them rather than penalize them. Owens makes the point that mitigating referee abuse has to start at the top. Perhaps the culture of soccer, the ‘gentleman’s game played by hooligans’, does not lend itself to such intelligence. Not only is Owens is one of the most respected referees in the game, the Rugby community positively embraced him when he publicly came out in 2007.

I would like to believe that an openly homosexual referee would be accepted in the soccer world, however, evidence against social progress is abundant. Not only does the despotic leader of FIFA put his insensitivity on display far too often, the Premier League could not even introduce a qualified, talented lineswoman without incident.

Owens refereed in the rugby world cup last year and has been encouraged by the sport’s reaction to his sexuality. He says he has never suffered discrimination.

In an interconnected, globalized world, where any fool with internet access can communicate with public figures though Twitter or Facebook, it takes balls to take a position on anything. Winning the admiration and respect of your community is certainly reflective of the community, but also of Owens and how he conducts himself. If he were to ply his trade in our sport, as the Guardian article suggests to him, I hope you would join me in welcoming him.

You can start by following Nigel Owens on Twitter: @nigelrefowens