Members Blogs

European qualification matches already started and some competitions will kick-off this weekend. Here are the new referees at the national top levels. If you miss something, let me know. Netherlands New in the senior referee group is Serdar Gözübüyuk, who holds many Dutch refereeing records, being the youngest referee ever officiating at the highest level in the Netherlands. Assistants Charl Schaap en Hessel Steegstra moved up to the highest level as well. Referee Ben Haverkort retired and has already started as commercial manager at FC Groningen, a club in the highest league. Austria New: Dominik Ouschan End of career: Bernhard Brugger (next December) Relegated: - Source: Announcement ÖFB Belgium No promotions announced...

The original Laws Of The Game (LATG) have been sold for £881,250 at an auction. The Rules, Regulations, & Laws of the Sheffield Foot‐Ball Club (1859). Photo by Sotheby's The anonymous bidder gets the unique handwritten rules of 1858 and the only known surviving copy of the only known surviving copy of the printed Rules, Regulations, & Laws of the Sheffield Foot‐Ball Club (1859). Both documents are part of the archive of world’s oldest football club Sheffield FC. Sotheby’s description of the document: “The 1858 rules promoted a passing game played with the feet, and included the free kick, throw‐in, goal kick, restrictions on handling the ball, and the banning of “hacking or tripping”. The code built on earlier football rules...

Leo Blank, editor of Dutch referee magazine De Scheidsrechter, is wondering wether amateur referees will give a yellow card if a player pulls off his shirt after he/she scores. Nobody ever did this in one of my matches, but I think it’s a good question. Are there special rules about that for amateur levels? Would YOU give a yellow card for that officiating at lower football levels? Don’t hesitate to join the discussion below. And what if someone gives away his shirt to a fan who entered the field, like Andrei Shevchenko did this week?

Massimo Busacca has been appointed as new head of Fifa’s refereeing department. The Swiss referee, who will start at August 1st, has announced the end of his career as ‘men in black’ recently. Fifa president Joseph Blatter is happy with his recruit: “As I have said on many occasions, I have made refereeing one of my main priorities. Massimo Busacca’s experience will prove to be particularly useful to our mission and to our efforts to continue the groundwork we have put in place with the confederations and member associations in this particularly important area.” The question for many referees is: will this in the future bring much change into refereeing. According to German newspaper Der Tagesspiel, Busacca has said he is favouring a...

Carlo Bertolini will be the new Swiss referee boss. He succeeds Urs Maier, who resigned in June because he didn’t feel support from the FA in professionalising refereeing in Switzerland. The new chief stopped his national career after last season. He was international from 1997 to 2010, when he got to retire because of Uefa’s age restrictions. “The first goal I want to achieve after the resignation of Urs Maier, is to give the top referees a certain certain security and stability again”, says Bertolini in Wednesday’s interview on the website of the Swiss FA. He feels the pressure of making new plans pretty fast. “The season starts this weekend, so there’s not much time left.” Bertolini doens’t want to professionalise Swiss refereeing as...

Two match officials living in the same house, whistling both male’s matches in Swiss leagues. But who’s the best referee? “We don’t compete, we discuss and he gives me advice for improving”, says Simona Ghisletta about her relationship with Roberto Ferrari, who was a top referee in Super League in Switzerland since 2001. “Because of his work he had to stop on high level and now he officiates in regional league. I’m referee in the third league so he can give me a lot of advices.” Simona Ghisletta. Photo provided by referee. “He also knows that being a women is different from being a men; I have my way to officiate. At home when we watch a game on tv we discuss a lot about the manner of the referee or if he could do this or that thing …...

The u17 Women’s European Championships, quite a unique tournament starting with the semi-finals. All matches will be played in the Colovray stadium across Uefa’s headquarters. Swiss referee Simona Ghisletta, one of the five referees who got promoted by Uefa last week, is looking forward to this tournament. “Next week I’m appointed for the Euro final tournament WU17 in Nyon. It’s the first big tournament and it’s in my country, it will be fantastic”, says the 35-year-old referee from Switzerland. But this is just a start for her, Ghisletta told Dutch Referee Blog. “For the future I hope to do even better and an olympic game or the world championship are really a dream.” On the 28th of July she will officiate Iceland vs. Spain or France...

‘Referees in the media’ will be published each Monday on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “With hard work, determination and commitment I’m sure the OFC referees will be just as good, if not better, than the top confederations.” By Japanese FIFA fitness instructor Toshio Utsumi, who has to prepare the Oceanian referees O’Leary, Kumar and Namo for the u20 World Cup in Colombia, on the website of OceaniaFootball.com. “I don’t know if it was because I’m a female too, and they’re used to being refereed by men. Or maybe because I was younger than them.” By rugby referee Sarah Bennison in The Guardian, who faced disrespect from female players officiating their matches...

Today, the second edition of SummerRefs has something special: the referee comes from southern hemispere, so this actually is a WinterRefs. In this section refs from all over the world and all with different experiences will tell about their refereeing career and how they prepare for next season during this summer break. Each Saturday a new profile will be posted online, and the second person who answers the five questions (5W’s) is Mike Cowie from New Zealand. Name: Mike Cowie Age: 20 Hometown: Christchurch, New Zealand Started refereeing: in 2007 Grade: Level 4 (Level 1 being the lowest) Mike Cowie Who do you think you are (as referee)? “I would hate to have to say “I am a referee similar to x,” but there are certainly a few...

Saw this today and thought it was brilliant. It got a few of us testing it in the office! Seen on Lifehacker.com Continue reading...

If you follow me on twitter you will have seen that I have made a decision recently to step back to being a level 5 Referee. This wasn't an easy decision however one I felt that I had to do. With my family changes during last season, I had agreed with The FA and my supply league that I would close Feb & March to allow home life to settle down. My plan then was to return during April to finish the season. One of the factors in this was I didn't know if I would be able to carry on as a level 4 referee this season, however really hoped that I would. I came back for one game but had barely trained during my time off and so was well of the pace fitness wise. Plus being honest family life still hadnt settled down and so I spoke with the...

Accident waiting to happen ... Since tearing my hamstring about 4 years ago as I tried to go through a sprint session keeping up with the lads who made up the County FA's School of Excellence, I've worn undershorts to support both hamstrings. They have been successful to some extent but I have still no confidence in sprinting and therefore never get above 75% of full pace. As I've retired from refereeing my last pair of undershorts, Helly Hansen's, have lasted longer than usual. Tonight however I found they have a hole which whill only get bigger, so it's time to buy some new ones. My other "accident" involves a bad choice of lunch and it did some terrible things to my digestive system. I don't think I'll be having prawn and...

Check the following penalty from the UAE vs Lebanon. What would you do? For me this is similar to checking your run and so a retake is appropriate? Goal or Not Continue reading...

If it looks like handball ... With Neil celebrating his birthday and Paul celebrating his wife's birthday it was another evening of running around the field on my own. I just concentrated on keeping picking up my feet and setting them down and worked pretty hard. Last night's promotion seminar went well with a lot of interaction and discussion on the subject of handball. I used a PowerPoint introduction and summary and in between ran a few clips of handball incidents. It was good that our new RDO sat in on part of the presentation and was able to offer his own input on some of the incidents. In the end the candidates seemed to accept that often it's down to the referee's positioning and his opinion to decide whether an offence has...

From the Pre Season game between San Jose Earthquakes and West Brom Continue reading...

8 weeks ... to my holidays Even though we turned up early to train, the field we use was already jam packed with football teams all in pre-season training. One group was the local Ladies football team who were playing a game of 6 (7?) aside in one quadrant of the football field we warm up and down around. Tonight they provided 2 moments of light relief and neither were intentional... The first came as the coach took the goalkeeper to one side and decided to "coach" her on taking goal kicks. I've never coached footballers but I have coached referees and in my day job I successfully coached sales teams to over achieve against sales targets. When I heard the coach say to the player, "What are you doing wrong?" the poor girl looked...

It's nearly here but not near enough ... I submitted my first set of closed dates for next season and there seemed to be a lot! It's no surprise as we struggle with trying to cover school holidays as well as ensure we have enough time to go on holiday on Rhodes for my daughter's wedding. Add in a family trip to Alton Towers and my in-law's Ruby Wedding anniversary party and there's not a lot of August and September left. So it looks like my assessing season will not get off the ground properly until October unless I take on a lot of midweek games, which will interfere with my training programme, which is going nicely thank you! We started a little earlier tonight and having tried out 2 minutes running, 1 minute walking on Friday, I...

5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Training is rarely fun at the best of times and when you have to train on your own, it's that little bit harder. Tonight, for a variety of reasons all my training partners had to be elsewhere so I trotted down to the field on my own. I had plenty to think of while training (slightly more than ... breathe in, breathe out) as I had managed to cross a few things off the "To Do" list. I'd finally completed my son's passport renewal, sent off his request for leave during term time to his school, booked some additional days in the school holidays, booked a double day ticket to Alton Towers and also an overnight hotel stop in between. I also managed to pick up a session next Thursday delivering some training to a...

A midweek post because it's another busy week and a lot has happened over the last two days. I headed to Hemsworth on Tuesday to watch a recently promoted referee and enjoyed his participation in a tense local derby. I did well to get to the ground as early as 70 minutes before kick off. I punched in the wrong club on the satnav and in the deepening gloom of an early dusk, I realised in the last mile that I was heading to the wrong ground. A few deft turns later and I was back on my way, but this time to the wrong side of the ground! I re-negotiated the side streets and found, to my relief that I was right outside the club house. Wednesday's trip to Sheffield saw me visit the home of the team I watched get battered just a couple of...

So much for taking a rest as things kicked off on the unofficial forum used by players, managers, etc. involved in the local Sunday League. It was just what I needed in the week that saw me take a trip to Birmingham with work (horrible journey back along the M42) and advised that I need to make a trip to Newcastle to chair an "important" meeting. Much of my time now seems to be spent in meetings at work. Out of work I managed to finalise the assessments from Monday's game and the coaching report from Sunday's, just in time to go out and assess a local promotion candidate on Saturday. It was a good old fashioned cup tie and there was plenty for the man in the middle to deal with. It was a similar story on Sunday as the game went to...