Earlier this year George Gansner went to Phoenix for the pre-season test for MLS referees and assistants. It was the first time in twenty years he did not have to do the test. “Being there is great, but I already miss it. It will be hard in the first few months of the season.” An […]
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Floodlights fail during a penalty shoot-out in a football game. It’s 11 pm and at that moment the football players were taking penalty kicks. The score is 7 vs 7 and the lights stop automatically due to a programmed timer for the lighting. “Everything that can happen during a game, has happened”, the winning coach […]
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“Use every challenge and disappointment as a spring board to future success”. A great lesson from Michael Ryan. He is a 24 years old from England currently registered with the Sussex County FA and operating as a Level 3 National List Contributory League Referee. He got some great news last week: “I have recently been […]
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Hi all,
Finally had time to post another entry, this one on the 1954 memoirs of former top amateur football player and subsequent sports writer/journalist Ivan Sharpe. Not the most modern of reads, but Sharpe had some very good ideas about football, some of which didn't get picked up on until much later. That's why I found the book relevant enough to write about anyway. Read more here.
The game between West Ham United and Everton was analysed during an IFAB workshop about video technology in Amsterdam. The example below shows you precisely what the value of the video assistant referee is. Make a guess first. The video assistant referee makes the call in 6 seconds. How long does it take the referee […]
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The Dutch national team has failed to qualify for Euro 2016, refereeing team Kuipers will go to France in the summer. “I hope to grow as a team during the tournament”, says Bjorn Kuipers in an interview with Dutch Referee Blog. “And in the end I dream of refereeing the final”. The Dutch refereeing team […]
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Leicester City have crowned themselves as winner of the Premier League. They are also masters in the counter attack. They get the ball and pass forward fast and their strikers are very effective. Are you able as referee to anticipate to that? Check out these lessons for Referee positioning at counter-attacks. Have quick view at the video below […]
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On the 10th of May 2016 the last game at Boleyn, the official name of Upton Park will be played by West Ham United. Some very interesting match situations for referees happened there. This is a referee’s farewell to Boleyn. You’ll find statistics and key incidents here, but also some good reads from referees about […]
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Mark Clattenburg to Referee Champions League Final 2016. That’s what Uefa has confirmed. Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson, 42, will be the man in the middle for the 2016 UEFA Europa League final between Liverpool and Sevilla in Basel next Wednesday. 2016 UEFA Champions League final refereeing team is: Referee: Mark Clattenburg (ENG) Assistants: Simon Beck, […]
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Every game on the Primeira Liga started with one minute of silence after the death of Paulo Paraty, a Portugese referee who officiated for Uefa and in highest league of Portugal. The moment in the game Boavista and Uniao da Madeira was the most special. Referee João Capela wrote RIP on the pitch with his […]
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Dives, crazy tackles, aggressive coaches. That’s also football nowadays, but not everything is like that. Also lots of nice skills are shown, unexpected teams (Leicester) are crowned as champions and there’s also some good sportsmanship by football stars these days. I found this clip of Dortmund’s Gonzalo Castro against Werder Bremen. He has the ball […]
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An interesting situation in the Ajax vs AZ u19 game. Ajax was behind constantly and scored the 4-3 in extra time of the game. Due to the victory Ajax is on top of the league table again. Matthijs de Ligt (number 3) scores the winning goal. He takes of his shirt and accepts the yellow card. […]
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Tom Simmons is currently a level 5 referee, but this month is very exciting for him. He hopes to hear he’ll get that promotion to level 4. Recently he got a cup final and now has to wait for the final news. Exciting times ahead. An interview with this 23 year old UK referee. Please […]
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The blog hasn’t been all that active as of late but it will be again on a less frequent schedule soon. It’s been a lot of hard work over the past year to get where what this blog is today so I’m pleased to announce that today is the official launch of The Top Ref store! […]
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“You won’t make it on the pitch with only the knowledge of the Laws of the Game”, says Willem Schuitemaker at a workshop I visited in Leiden this year. “You need passion, talent and motivation. That combination will bring you to your personal best and passion is the most important here.” Schuitemaker has been invited […]
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IFAB has released the Laws of the game 2016-2017. They call this revision “probably the most comprehensive in The IFAB’s 130 year history”. The idea behind it: so the laws will be “appropriate for football in the 21st century”. The ultimate aim of the revision of the Laws is according to IFAB: “to increase the universality of […]
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In a ground-breaking move, the FIFA Laws of the Game is out earlier than ever before; April 13th. Why you ask? Great question. I’ve held off on paraphrasing FIFA articles promising some of the changes earlier this year. These will change the way we think about the game. Simply because it ain’t real until it’s […]
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Tyler Tschunitz did 193 games in less than one year of refereeing. How I did it? “I have no idea, I just showed up everyday and did my thing. I just tried to keep motivated and enjoy what I did.” Referee Tyler Tschunitz is 16 years old. He currently is a district referee from Québec, Canada. […]
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There’s been lots of negativity in the newspapers recently about referees. But do referees feel so bad after their games? I (Jan from Dutch Referee Blog) support the message about positivity from Ref Support: I love the whistle, I love the game. Here are parts of the message that Martin Cassidy from Ref Support shared […]
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A camera on the line to determine if a goal is scored. Seems fair. But do the costs of goal-line technology weigh up against the advantages? In the Premier League it has cost each team around £250,000 to install the systems. That’s an indication of the costs for all countries. “If you look at it […]
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