I am pretty sure where this story has come from and can confirm this is 100% true.
I am a member of the FA core group and at the first meeting of the season this was mentioned by a very senior member of the FA's refereeing department, lets just use the initial D. D presented to the whole group, levels 7-4 at this point and told us all that image is everything when progressing through the levels and that the FA EXPECT a certain image of its referee's. He re-iterated this by asking how many of select groups 1 or 2 have and facial hair? Have long hair? Have visible Tattoos? The answer was none.
He went on, "I am not suggesting anyone with a beard to immediately go and shave it off, but if you are looking to go to the very top then you will be expected to portray a certain "image" and this image does not include beards or tattoos".
There was a certain degree of shock around the room just as the story says, especially as so many of the group had facial hair of some description and or tattoos.
Finally and i think this backs the whole thing up, Mark Clattenburg, clean shaven his whole select group career. Mark announced he was leaving the select group at the end of the season, his very next game, yep you guessed it.......He had a beard.
**Disclaimer.....I am a regular contributor to the forum but have set up a completely new account to post this as i wanted to retain complete anonymity as i have gone into some detail with this post**