Footballsouth is investigating an allegation of racial abuse by a referee in a Dunedin premier league game.
An incident report from Saturday's Grants Braes v Roslyn-Wakari game played at Ellis Park - which featured three red cards - includes the allegation.
The report alleges the referee made a racially offensive remark towards a player, believed to be from the Grants Braes club.
The incident report was filed by an independent referees' assessor, not by either of the clubs.
Footballsouth chairman Dougal McGowan declined to confirm the identity of the referee on the basis not all the facts had been received.
"We have stood down a referee pending the investigation," Mr McGowan said yesterday.
"We're still waiting on reports, and we've requested extra reports from the people involved.
"[The referee] should be seen to be innocent until proven guilty.
"He hasn't written his own report yet, and we also haven't had one from the person the alleged comments were made towards."
Mr McGowan said Footballsouth was taking advice from New Zealand Football on how to deal with racism allegations.
"We want to try to get it dealt with quickly, and we want to make sure we act accordingly.
"Racism shouldn't exist in sport. It's not tolerable.
"We're treating it very seriously."
Footballsouth general manager Bill Chisholm said there was likely to be a judicial committee hearing early next week.
He believed the racism allegation was unrelated to a spate of red cards in Saturday's game. Three Grants Braes players were sent off during the game.
Mr Chisholm said he had not had to deal with a case of racial abuse during his time in the job.
"It's not a common occurrence in our neck of the woods, and hopefully that will continue."
Grants Braes coach Alan Laidler said the matter was for the judiciary to settle and declined to comment further.
