Our Referees

As well as providing a fun, safe and enjoyable football experience for children of all ages, we want to provide a valuable learning platform for them too. 

As part of this, we are aiming to ensure that all games played at Junior Leagues are refereed by children and young adults, with our focus being on each game being officiated by a child a little older than those playing. 

As a new referee with Junior Leagues, you will be inducted by an experienced member of our staff. You will receive regular contact from a designated Area Manager for your league, who will advise and support our young referees throughout their learning curve. 

We have a reputation for the strongest disciplinary structure of any organised football in the world - this means we can offer a safe and comfortable environment for young referees to learn the game and the art of refereeing. 

We've all seen it, haven't we? Adult referees in charge of junior matches getting abuse from the parents on the sidelines. Well, we looked at what they do on the continent, in places like Scandinavia, Germany or Holland, where a child a little bit older than the players, who may not wish to play football, has a chance to referee.

And it works. The parents don't give any abuse to the referee because he's a child and the players look up to the older child, as children tend to do.

Not only that, we will be giving opportunities to children who may not wish to play football but might want to start refereeing matches themselves.

This also applies to those who suffer challenges, either physical or mental, which means they don’t feel able to join in with the matches. We will be glad to give these children opportunities to experience the joy of being involved in football.