The Northern League, formed in 1889, is to appoint volunteers as “Secret Shoppers”, a revolutionary idea that targets staff and players who use abusive language during matches.
The worst offending clubs would then be brought to the attention of the League officials who would then “name and shame” in the process.
League chairman Mike Amos believes the fresh approach will improve standards throughout Non-League Football.
He said: “People say to me ‘it's a passionate game’ and it is - but it is also a disciplined game.”
He added: “If you go to a Premier League game with 50,000 people there and the players and management are effing and blinding, you can't hear it, and so in a sense it doesn't matter. But if you are at a game with 100 people in the ground, you can hear.”
The league is home to 46 clubs from Northumberland, Tyneside, Teeside, County Durham and North Yorkshire.
After advertising for volunteers to work as “secret shoppers”, the League received over 100 replies from former officials, players and ordinary spectators.
Amos feels that the English FA could do more in stamping down on abusive language, but he also believes referees should be more stringent towards the use of fowl language and send players and staff off accordingly.
He continued: “We have to get it through to the managers that the crowd is a few feet behind them. If they are swearing like that on a main street on a Friday night they would be arrested, so what makes it acceptable at a ground?”
The system is set to be put in place at the start of next season and will include a swearing “league table” which will be published on each club's website, in programmes and in the league magazine.
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