Determining the definition and components of successful soccer referee performance

ABSTRACT

There has been little work examining the intricacies of what makes a soccer referee successful. The aim of this study was to determine what the definition of a successful referee performance is and what are the characteristics of a successful referee from a broad range of stakeholders in Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Professional Referees Organisation (PRO). The study used Delphi methodology to ask 6 MLS General Managers, 2 MLS Coaches,1 MLS League Officer, 4 PRO Referees and 10 PRO Assistant Referees, 8 PRO Staff and 5 PRO Assessors, and 2 PRO2 Referees two questions: 1. Their definition of a successful referee performance. 2. Their opinion on the characteristics of a successful referee. The result was a 7-point definition of a successful referee performance and 26 characteristics of a successful referee. There were ten characteristics that overlapped with previous work examining successful referees. This study was able to develop a definition of a successful referee performance and determine the characteristics of a successful referee.

KEYWORDS:

• Match official
• successful referee
• soccer referee
• football referee

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2024.2317641

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.