HOW TO DECIDE ON THE REFEREE’S MARK

The following questions focus on the key areas of a referee’s performance. They are intended as an “aide-mémoire”, are
not necessarily comprehensive and need not be answered individually. It is, however, worth considering them before
committing yourself to a mark for the referee.
Control And Decision Making
• How well did the referee control the match?
• Were the players’ actions recognised correctly?
• Were the Laws applied correctly?
• Were all incidents dealt with efficiently/effectively?
• Were all the appropriate sanctions applied correctly?
• Was the referee always within a reasonable distance of incidents?
• Was the referee well positioned to make critical decisions, especially in and around the penalty area?
• Did the referee understand the players’ positional intentions and keep out of the way accordingly?
• Did the referee demonstrate alertness and concentration throughout the match?
• Did the referee apply the use of the advantage to suit the mood and temperature of the match?
• Was the referee aware of the players’ attitude to advantage?
• Did the referee use the assistants effectively?
• Did the officials work as a team, and did the referee lead and manage them to the benefit of the match?
Communication And Player Management
• How well did the referee communicate with the players during the match?
• Did the referee’s level of involvement/profile suit this particular match?
• Did the referee understand the players’ problems on the day – e.g. difficult ground/weather conditions?
• Did the referee respond to the changing pattern of play/mood of players?
• Did the referee demonstrate empathy for the match, allowing it to develop in accordance with the tempo of the match?
• Was the referee proactive in controlling the match?
• Was the referee’s authority asserted firmly without being officious?
• Was the referee confident and quick-thinking?
• Did the referee appear unflustered and unhurried when making critical decisions?
• Did the referee permit undue questioning of decisions?
• Did the referee deal effectively with players crowding around after decisions/incidents?
• Was effective player management in evidence?
• Was the referee’s body language confident and open at all times?
• Did the pace of the match, the crowd or player pressure affect the referee negatively?
Final Thoughts
• Always try to be objective when marking. You may not obtain the most objective view by marking immediately after
the match.
• Judge the performance over the whole match. Don’t be too influenced by one particular incident.
• Don’t mark the referee down unfairly because your team was unlucky and lost the match or some disciplinary action
was taken against your players.

Marking Scheme for Clubs
The FA Referees Committee has approved the following rules to the marking of referees by clubs. They are designed to
simplify the system and to encourage clubs to think carefully about the marking of referees.

The 1-100 marking scheme will be sub-divided into four categories as follows:
Mark Range Comment

100-86 The referee demonstrated very accurate decision-making and controlled the match very well, 
using management and communication skills effectively to add value to the match.
85-76 The referee demonstrated accurate decision-making and controlled the match well, using
management and communication skills to contribute positively to the match.
75-61 The referee demonstrated reasonably accurate decision-making and, despite some shortcomings
generally controlled the match well.
60 and below The referee demonstrated shortcomings in the accuracy of decision-making and control which
affected the match.

Club officials should use the full range of marks within each category to help distinguish between different
performance levels e.g. within the 85-76 category a mark of 84 indicates a better performance than a mark of 77.
Whilst some referees may have poor matches, there will usually have been some positive aspects of their
performance, so extremely low marks should be very rare.
When club officials are marking a referee, they should always look at the match as a whole and not isolated
decisions. The result of the match should not influence the mark, and disciplinary action should be judged
objectively.
Referee marks of sixty or less must be accompanied by a letter explaining the low mark to the Referee Secretary,
within four days of the match. The purpose of this explanation is to assist referees to improve their performance
levels, so the comments should be as helpful as possible