Referee Quotes

My job is to hit somebody until the referee pulls me off.

I think with my generation, your first game of senior football was often a Sunday League game of football. Sometimes you’re playing on pitches that aren’t great, you’ve no referee, you’ve no goal nets.

If you’re going to advance as a referee and make that $75,000 to $100,000 a year in the playoffs, you’re going to give the league what they want. Because they are grading you.

Coaches do so much research about a referee because they believe refereeing is such a crucial part of the game that the result may hinge on what we say or do. They probably know more about me than I know myself!

When I got into UFC, it was an unbelievable feeling. When I got inside the cage, ‘Big’ John McCarthy – a guy who I was watching back when Royce Gracie was fighting – was the referee. I was able to earn a quick submission win. It was perfect.

Some of the best preparation I had for coming to Congress is being a football referee. Because you’ve got to make a decision, and no matter what you do, someone’s unhappy with you.

Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.

You can’t applaud a referee.

When I played, you had a lot of enforcers. You would go to the hole, get knocked down, and the referee would look at you and say, ‘Get stronger, get up, and keep playing.’

I think, always, the form of the players is a decisive factor. And a game-plan and the referee. He can influence the game. And in a derby, a cool head is also very important.

When I was a kid, I got sent off for head-butting a referee: I ran 50m to argue a decision, I was shown a red card, and I head-butted him. I’m really not proud of that.

It has more repercussion when the referee favours us than when we are harmed.

We must respect the referee every time.

The objective of a referee is not to get mentioned. I tell a lot of young referees that not being mentioned is king. If you can achieve that, that then it has been a pretty good game.

I don’t know that the referee can be watching holding on the offensive line and get back to the quarterback. I think watching the quarterback is a full-time job.

When someone oversteps the mark, there’s a referee.

The Football Association have always acted more as a referee than a governor. And the FA, aware the Premier League provide players for the England team, have always had too gentle a hand on the tiller. The result is that the Premier League are the tigers in the English football jungle everybody’s scared of.

It is always hard when the referee is against you.

I just love playing snooker. Every single frame is different. Not one referee ever sets the balls up exactly the same.

When United play at home, they get some advantage that other teams don’t get. I think when you go to United, Madrid, Barcelona, or Milan, when the referees referee these kind of games, it’s always difficult to go against these kind of teams.

If you ask any referee before the game – they ask me if I have anything to say, I tell them ‘I’m going straight up.’ Every time. Every game. And they know that and they say I’m one of the best at it.

Hockey lends itself to special events, including the Olympic competition: a glorious tournament of the best players in the world, putting on their national jerseys and playing on big rinks with no-goon Olympic rules and referee enforcement.

I love what I’m doing. It’s my life. When it’s time to go, I’ll probably be fighting to get out of the casket. I’ll be yelling at the priest instead of a referee.

No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.

A video referee is useful for sure.

We talked to the referees before the game; there’s always new situations to adjust, for the refs and for us as well. Even on the ice, it’s good for players to talk and interact with the referee.

I used to be in a street fight at least twice a week, so locking me in a cage with somebody, with a set of rules and a referee to jump in if something get ugly, and a time limit, like, it don’t scare me.

But then southern hemisphere teams are more skilful than their northern hemisphere counterparts, which means games can be easier to referee.

Juventus are specialists because they have the habit to win and the habit to put pressure on the referee. It’s a club with a culture to try to do everything to help the team.

There’s nothing like making a decision when you’re a football referee. It really pushes you to be very clear – to make that decision and to sell it to everybody who’s there. You believe in it, but you have to make sure other people believe in it, too.

In Italy, everyone is talking about the referee for three days before the game – ‘We don’t like him. He is no good.’

We have to be careful with time-wasting, the behaviour of the players. There are a lot now who are complaining during the game. We have to think about only the captain able to talk to the referee, not everybody, because we’re losing a lot of time.

We need to let the referee’s sole thing be to protect the quarterback and get those late hits out of there. They even have a stat on television that says ‘knockdowns.’ Knockdowns means that you knock him down after he throws the ball. The assumption is, if it’s legal, we’ll make excuses for them.

It’s true: sometimes Balotelli could behave better, but it also happens to me. I have a similar character, Balotelli is also a very strong player, but if you protest against the referee for every decision, it’s logical you are going to irritate the fans.

MMA has a referee, and you’re wearing gloves. I’m in there with another volunteering participant that’s out there to win some prize money.

The numbers are there just to help you – at the end of the day you’ve still got to make the decision. There are certain things the numbers can’t quantify: They can’t quantify injuries, they can’t quantify the weather, they can’t give you a number on whether the referee’s going to make a good call or a bad call.

There have been many matches where a wrestler gets hurt. The referee usually senses it and stops the match, but the referee doesn’t always know.

We score and stop. We don’t celebrate because it has to go to VAR. What are the supporters doing? The passion goes. I think they have to have a little more flexibility, such as with the offside rule. If it’s not clear and obvious, maintain the decision of the referee.

Sporting behaviour means fair behaviour. This is the player’s task, not the referee’s.

You know, I’m a father. I’m a brother. I’m a son. And I’m a grandfather. So many times I have to be the intermediary, the person to referee and help solve disputes and to protect and to guide.

The matches that I’ve been involved with as a referee, sometimes the heel likes to get up in my face a little bit and even at 65 years old, I don’t put up with that crap. Most times or not, the poor guy gets chopped down a few times.

It annoys me when people who don’t know what they’re talking about boo the referee.

Yeah definitely, I have to be brave. There are some bad tackles that we don’t like. But it’s not my job to look at that, it’s the referee’s job, he has to see what is going on. All I try to do is keep going.

You should always play 100 per cent, and you shouldn’t expect every decision from the referee.

I get told off by my mum for being a bit rough on the pitch. I’m in the referee’s ear a lot – referees probably hate me – but it’s just part of my game. My mum tells me off for that as well; speaking to refs too much.

Jake Roberts started in Mid-South as a referee. We’re pretty close, and we come from the same school of thought when it comes to the psychology of wrestling.

The game is never over. No matter what the scoreboard reads or what the referee says, it doesn’t end when you come off the court.

When I hurt Norton, I got scared. I looked to the referee. But in the same sense, you’re a fighter: you gotta have the killer instinct.

It’s the referee’s job to stop the fight. I’m in there to win, defend myself, and further my career.

One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.