They had the courage to say “No, we've had enough. We are not offering our services until effective measures are in place to counter the constant abuse we face on and off the field of play.” Bravo!
Administrators know about abuse of their volunteer match officials but have never found the most effective means to control it. Consequently, the insults, intimidation, and violence against referees continues to mount until a bubble bursts to reveal the problem yet again.

A personal experience explains my admiration for the Scottish referees action. In the early days of televised matches in England I was embroiled in a similar situation with historic consequences.
Saturday 14 October 1967, TV cameras focused on a Football League Second Division match, Millwall v Aston Villa, at The Den, New Cross, in S.East London.
Millwall lost 1-2 and Norman Burtenshaw, one of the finest of English referees, was kicked to the ground by an angry mob. The fans blamed him for not awarding a penalty to their team.
For months the Football League match officials association had reported a growing trend of abuse and violence against members and had urged The Football Association (FA) and the League (FL) to take positive action before a fatal incident occurred. Burtenshaw was so nearly the first victim.

As President of the officials I obtained an urgent meeting with the FL to insist on raising fences to keep fans from invading soccer pitches. We were assured of immediate action at Millwall but the club’s bad reputation for crowd problems (three ground closures and several warnings) seemed not to influence a joint FA-FL commission which found the club guilty but imposed a powder-puff fine of £1000 - and another warning. No fences.