The Otago Daily Times understands three premier coaches, across men’s and women’s grades, were cited for abusing referees at the weekend.
Southern Football chief executive Dougal McGowan declined to name the clubs, or give further details of the incidents leading to the red cards.
But he said the people involved "know better and should act better than they did".
"One of the key parts here is these people are leaders in our games and they need to lead by example," Mr McGowan said.
"As people know ... it’s really hard to get officials, and [when] officials get targeted in some cases it’s far from ideal.
"It’s not what we need to see, or want, in our game, that’s for sure."
Southern Football would go through the regulations before deciding what "disciplinary actions" were required, but Mr McGowan was clear the organisation would not tolerate abuse from anyone in the game.
"All of us need to think about those standards that we have, and how we do that, and where does that sit with the values of our organisations, our clubs and our teams.
"Though it’s a game of football, it’s more than that.
"It’s about trying to create good people and good communities."
Most sports have been crying out for officials — "without them ... the game doesn’t exist" — and abuse towards them from grassroots to elite was unacceptable, he said.
"We see it at some of the younger age groups ... when there’s even volunteer parents that are doing the refereeing."
Mr McGowan said his organisation would continue work to demand appropriate behaviour from the football community.
"That’s really important to us, but equally that we’ve got to respect everybody that’s involved in our community.
"Whether it’s a volunteer, whether it’s an official, or whether it’s a player, whether it’s just a spectator coming along — we all need to have our part in making sure that everybody feels safe in those environments.
"We’ve all got to be able to call that [abuse] out when we need to."
