We have today published the year one review of our three-year Refereeing Strategy: To Grow, Guide & Govern.
The review highlights the progress made in the first year, including an increase in referee numbers and a record in retention rates along with actions taken against the strategy’s four key transformational goals set out in 2023:
• Making refereeing an attractive career choice – halving the time it takes to reach the top levels and providing slicker, easier admin via one system across the game.
• Improving referee experience – introducing new rewards and recognition and the implementation of behavioural change initiatives, including the trial of body cams for grassroots referees.
• Making refereeing more inclusive – a commitment to a 50 per cet increase in referees from historically under-represented communities and a 50 per cent increase of female referees.
• Enhancing referee performance and development – tripling online resources and training and doubling investment in our development system.
Key progress made in the first year of our Refereeing Strategy: To Grow, Guide & Govern include:
• An increase in the total number of match officials by 20 per cent. There are now over 37,000 referees in England.
• Record retention levels of referees in the 2023-24 season, with 77.8 per cent of match officials continuing to stay in refereeing.
• Recruiting over 10,000 new match officials in 2023-24 and the number of female match officials has already exceeded our year two target.
• Made significant progress towards our goal of making refereeing more inclusive, with 510 match officials accessing the bursary scheme from Black, Asian & Mixed Heritage backgrounds.
• Surpassing our target of achieving a net increase of 1000 Black and Asian Referees by 2026, with 2,527 people from Black, Asian & Mixed Heritage backgrounds already registered.
• Exceeding our targets to increase the number of women referees by 2026. Our 2024 target was 2,800 and we currently stand at 3,139 women referees
• Match official satisfaction is at its highest ever point at 74 per cent, exceeding the 68 per cent target for 2024.
• Positive steps taken towards the reduction of time that it takes a match official to reach the men’s professional game, with last year’s cohort achieving promotion 18 months quicker than their predecessors.
Peter Elsworth, our head of referee operations, said: "We have made great progress in the first year of our refereeing strategy To Grow, Guide & Govern. It’s particularly pleasing to see that we have exceeded our targets across key areas by expanding our number of referees, improving our retention rates and increasing levels of diversity across all levels of the game.
“This is the start of the journey, and we are already making further developments in 2024-25 to make refereeing more attractive, more inclusive, and enhancing the access to ongoing development for all our match officials. There has never been a more exciting time to be involved in refereeing."
Find out more about refereeing and how to start your own journey here.
