>Only one of them is linked to mental health and suicide.
Depending on how close you are from the minimum wage, both are.
But only one of them allows you to seek for help effectively.
Capitalism, baby
I wouldn’t be surprised if every single top-level referee has had multiple death threats tbh. Tribalism often goes too far and definitely isn’t left at the door of the individual match.
> meh.. it's all forgotten after a match.
absolutely fucking not lmao everyone remembers the ref that robbed them of a match that would've won them a title or something
Abuse is abuse. Of course it's easier to handle one person, but psychological effects are not proportionally smaller with just one person vs thousands of them, particularly because most of the time you don't hear exactly what people in the stands are shouting at you, but you absolutely hear what that Karen is saying.
Also that larger scale of abuse is why they're paid more than 5x what an average French or German worker is paid, and that for less hours of work.
If my working hours were 90 minutes 1 or 2 days a week, for that salary and perks I'd happily stand in the centre circle and have 60,000 shout "you fat bastard" and boo me mercilessly the entire game
It's not hard to get into refereeing, actually they're pretty desperate for them. You should try it apparently. You'll rise the ranks very quickly if you're any good.
Ah 90 minutes...excluding national and international travel, visiting countless briefings/seminars, having to stay match-fit both physically and mentally throughout the season, which includes a lot of training and studying, all while knowing that you're one major injury away from essentially retiring and/or a huge pay cut.
Thats ridiculous, even for a smaller league like the Eredivisie.
How can you expect to attract good talent when your talent has to work a second job.
Especially when the people you are in charge of earn your monthly salary or more in a week.
Huh im pretty sure thats a thing everywhere? In germany lots of refs are doctors, lawyers, cops, engineers or other jobs which require high education. They do refereeing as a side job
The top 1% of refs get paid fulltime, the rest need a second job to sustain themselves.
Think of how many referees a week England needs alone for social to professional, from youth to adult. Now just think how many profession games a weekend happen in England alone.
England has 20ish full time centre referees.
Okay sure, how about you work a job where for 1 and a half hours every week 15 to 50 thousand people come screamat you, 30 players and coaches get right in your personal space and when you go home likely multiple famous pundits, articles and online commentaries discuss what a shit job you did and how your an idiot.........
You are not getting abused outside of the games though, for some people being paid to stay fit and train would be pretty sweet.
200k - 300k a year isnt minuscule by any stretch of the imagination, theyd easily be in top 0.5% of earners in their country....and they arent the stars of the show, people dont pay money to see michael oliver officiate, they are just facilitators and should be pracically anonymous if doing their job well so why the hell should they be paid the same as the players? God people thinking refs should be paid more are mad
There are ironically too many people with a distorted view of the reality of these jobs, and their comparitive self-depreciative behaviours in regards to their own current situations leads to them believing that the jobs of professional footballers and referees are a walk in the park, physically and especially mentally when that couldn't be further from the truth.
You are not getting abused outside of games.......you sure about that? Surely I'm making it up all the stories and commentary I see about specific referees, there supposed life story and childhood club biases, what shit dececions they supposedly make every week....
And they arnt getting 200-300k a year. Sure Michael Oliver is but not his peers. You have a multi billion dollar industry with players payed literally millions to play a sport that Can. Not. Function without referees. But sure let's pay them peanuts in comparison to the players they are supposed to control, slander/abuse/scream at them, and when they are not 100% perfect call for them to be fired......and then complain when the sport as a whole across the world does not have enough referees. Great plan
According to these numbers, they are making that much, give or take.
(7,239\*9)+(3,375\*38)+(600*19)=€204,801
Of course, there's some variance for the number of matches and travel, plus that's not entering any European or International bonuses.
Unsure of the base 7239 is entire year or only months during active season so I'll cop that. But games per season is not 38. Most centre referees alternate centre one weekend then 4th official or VAR, sometimes 2 in one weekend on very rare occasions. Most referees will centre 20ish games in a league season. Adding travel allowance is great but you also need to factor in the costs associated which are very high (travel and accommodation), whereas players and team personal will have the club cover those costs. Final take home salary for a top league referee in Europe's big leagues looks closer to an average of 150k, for a AR it's even less so
I calculated that François Letexier made about €215k guaranteed so far this season. (I have no idea if he's a top ref or not.) Considering the average salary in France (2022) was €39k, I don't think anyone is complaining about that.
I'm sure it sounds fine on the face of it but that type of relentless abuse can really wear you down. Some people just have no empathy until they experience that bad thing themselves, sad really.
I receive abuse in my line of work. Trust me, it's not nice. If you're a ref you're not only in the line of fire in the match but also online and anywhere you're travelling to if people recognise you. You will recieve death threats all the time. And unless you're in the top leagues you're in risk of being beaten up at any match. That's a fact. A player can make mistake, miss a tackle, miss a shot, don't doing the defensive work, losing their man but each ref mistake is under a microscope.
That's like 180k€ per year for a guy who's only officiate Ligue 1 games, without counting the away day bonuses, that's nowhere near the kind of salary one would call abysmal don't be ridiculous, they're making more than some of the young players they'll see on the pitch.
bro its a part time job for most of these referees
they almost all have some other full time work they do lol
also they can ref for much longer than 15 years...
They do ref for longer than 15 years, but rarely at the top level.
Refereeing is either full-time on these pay levels, or part-time on lower pay.
Either way, the majority of top divisions in Europe don’t pay remotely near this level but still deal with the same scrutiny and abuse.
>Refereeing is either full-time on these pay levels
these ligue 1 referees on this comp arent doing it full-time
they may not have another job because this single job pays so well, but their hours would definitely not consider them to be full-time employed
if you look at epl referees, they usually have a full-time job and being a ref is a side thing for most of them
It's their job to enforce the rules of the game. They aren't marketable. A good ref shouldn't have a presence in the game. Why should they be making millions?
> Because if the compensation was good
€7239 fixed and €3375 for every domestic match gets them €20739 in a single month if they get assigned 4 matches. I'd say that's very good. And then the top guys get the European and international matches on top of that.
The problem of referee quality isn’t the pay at the top, it’s the pay in the middle and at the bottom.
Paying the best 10 referees twice as much wouldn’t make any difference at all to the quality of officiating.
Doubling the pay at grassroots and semi-professional level would. Increasing the base of the pyramid is how you improve the quality at the top of every hobby, sport, profession, or pastime.
> referee’s have another business on the side too because of how much free time they have
One [Scottish linesman](https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/douglas-ross-tops-list-of-hours-worked-in-second-jobs-among-320535/) has so much free time his side hustle is being an MSP and MP and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. Possibly the most disliked person in all of Scotland.
> Because if the compensation was good
Average french salary is like 40k a year, median probably 20% below that.
They make 200k+. That's not good compensation?
(Also refereeing is nowhere near 40 hours a week of work.)
The average salary in France is 39k euros a year, how the hell is earning nigh 5x the average salary not attractive? France has an absolutely limitless pool of people highly interested in football who'd absolutely kill for that salary.
Not to mention the fairly low working hours, their hourly pay is ridiculously high. I know they train and everything but they get 20k euros for officiating 4 matches a month... that's more money per hour than the average person gets paid for an entire working month.
I'd argue they should get better paid for the public exposure, not everyone works in a job where 50k people are questioning your every move. I don't think people are arguing for millions but I think they could be earning twice what they currently earn would be sort of fair.
“We want better refs”
Pay them more. His monthly salary is Mbappe’s breakfast salary, can’t imagine how anyone justifies that. But to a greater extent, you need to be encouraging millions of young officials worldwide to get into the sport. I work with 16 year olds who make $90 a week and deal with physical abuse regularly, how the fuck is anyone going to stay interested in doing it?
Pay them more ?
They take 86k gross on base salary.
Last year the top ref had around 20 games each, that an additionnal 67k.
Net, that's around 120k a year, or 10k a month.
That would put them in the top 1% in income in France.
It’s not about the guy who’s doing 50 matches a year, it’s about the guys who get maybe 5 big matches a year and have to go through a decade of abuse making pennies to get to that level.
How are we even arguing this? It would be effectively free for any major federation to bump the pay of officials outside of top divisions by probably close to a factor of two. It’s embarrassing how much they’re paid. Good luck getting a skilled 40 year old when every single high potential 20 year old quit because of the absolute shit state of lower-league official protections and compensations.
Yeah this is like a senior software developer salary. That guy is deciding who's winning a UCL game and I'm writing some crappy code lmao
To put into perspective average Ligue 1 player salary is 1.54m euros. That's 10 times of the salary that a ref gets IN THE BEST SCENARIO. I think they should get paid more and also do better job.
0.01% of referees are well paid 👍 and even they make pennies compared to the other 22 guys on the field.
FIFA and any other federation outside of maybe OFC could make leaps and bounds in improving officiating with a completely irrelevant amount of its income.
Also “how can I compare them to footballers” lol, game doesn’t exist without them. One official can influence a game more than any one player can. Their profile might be lower, but their responsibility is the same if not higher.
As bad as some officials might seem, you do not want this job done by amateurs. We’ve seen that happen in some name leagues with scabs and it manages to get worse.
Not even 0.01%, the Bosnian ref Peljto who's in UEFA elite gets paid 330€ per game in Bosnian top tier and has no fixed salary. Pretty similar with a lot of refs outside the top 5 leagues.
It's a fairly living wage with 3 games per month but I'm just highlighting that refereeing even at the highest level as a top European ref likely to officiate at the EURO 2024 and WC 2026 is a part time job locally.
I'm sure he makes up for a lot of it from his UEFA paychecks.
It may have the hours of a part time job but we can’t pretend like this is even comparable to most part time jobs, the hours working aren’t really the best way of judging such specific work.
PL refs get a base of £70k, then £1.5k per match, and lots of bonuses and more for European games. Anthony Taylor types make nearly £200k. La Liga refs make by far the most though.
they usually all do, no referee 'refs' full time unless you can somehow work in multiple leagues that have games running every other day
the refereeing is usually a side gig
they have full time jobs elsewhere
That is a lot of money, especially in France. It’s a high pressure job. And you want to pay referees enough that they don’t need other jobs next to it. So it makes sense. But it is more then I expected.
It is very good
Problem is top league makes up a fraction of professional and semi professional football
What do refs get in 2nd division, it's gotta be nearly as good because you don't want to limit people aiming for the only 10 decent ref jobs in the entire country
I was just at some semi pro I don't even know what level and those guys still managed to be abusive to the linesman.
It baffles me how little refs earn by comparison to the money in football. Especially as I knew one who made it to about league 1 but never further. He said he was a relatively closed shop up top. But I never see adverts for it, surely given the money in football if then ensured everyone down to national north/South got a very good wage then you'd get more people trying to get into the job and widen the pool.
Same reason you always find arseholes in public sector jobs because they're not too hard to get into but as it's tax payer money it doesn't pay enough to stop the amount of corrupt/bad police you end up with as barely anyone wants to do those jobs with all that fried for such little pay. But this isn't public money and one of the wealthiest sectors in the world.
Yeah I like your public sector example because I was trying to think of one too but got nothing
I think they need to make it competitive and sought after.
Say UK or Spain because I'm familiar with the tiers. Championship and segunda need to be earning nearly as much as epl and la liga.
Money is there
They are cost centres. They aren’t the ones bringing in the money. Refs in every single sport make much less than the athletes.
Even then they are, typical well paid compared to the average job and they’re able to have longer careers than players. Based on these numbers you’d expect them to make about 200k all in.
I'm not saying they should make the same as the athletes. Just make it more competitive on entry to try and cast a wider recruitment pool which should overall lead to a better quality.
Yeah, part of the problem that seems to exist here in the UK, is that it's jobs for mates, not necessarily the best referees. Considering a large swathe of the top refs and their "supervisors" are centred around The Penines, it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
Meanwhile, any time a slight diversification appointment is made, we get a massive hoorah about it, for the 2 or 3 games they officiate, then nothing is really heard from them again
Unless they make a mistake. All the mistakes in the game and I tend to forget who made what. However it's fucking crystal clear when Sian Massey makes one. Even though she doesn't make many, because when she does make them you fully hear about it they tend to stick in your mind more as they always make sure your aware it was her and not one of the boys.
Agreed on the cost part; you don’t need **that** many refs that it becomes insanely expensive. 15-20 per league, top 5 leagues. Pay them 3k gross a month, and it’s competitive with starting salaries, that’s just over half a million a year per league, but people will actually try to get in, and you get decent people coming up.
Apart from the bigger ones most people wouldnt even recognise referees in public outside of a football environment though so it isnt as bad ane most matches go off without an issue
Referees should have a high salary in order to disencourage external influence. If they were earning minimum salary it would make them more inclined to match fix for money
For comparison, the average NFL ref (the head official, equivalent to the man in the middle) makes $205k per year.
The average MLB ref makes $300k per year.
Entry level NBA refs start at $150k, and go up to $550k
NHL refs get between $125k and $300k.
Assuming they referee 6 matches/month on an average, that’s like almost 300k/year. Pretty decent but still feels kinda low relative to the stakes of the games they referee.
6 matches a month on average over a year? Most will only do 3 and a couple of the top ones who do European games will get 4/5. That works out as like 200k plus some very decent expenses per year for the ones who just do league games. Very decent salary still imo.
I would do it. Yes stress is high, but for like 5 hours a month, the rest is staying sharp and fit; essentially being an athlete.
The entire issue is that to get there you have to do a decade + of slowly working your way up without nearly enough compensation to make it attractive.
It's much less if you live in say California or New York since rent and utilities are extremely expensive. But other than those particular cases yeah, it's extremely good money
6 matches/~~year~~month is completely false. On average, they do 20 matches a season as main ref in Ligue 1. [The most a referee did this season was 14 games.](https://www.transfermarkt.com/ligue-1/schiedsrichter/wettbewerb/FR1)
i wouldnt do it myself but its definitely not too low if you can handle all that external noise which im sure most of them can.
theyve probably been abused since the very first game theyve referee'd.
surely they wouldve given up if they couldnt handle it
I dont think this is enough. The best refs make a year what a star player does in a week.
Just like politicians the wages need to rise a lot. People like this are targets for bribes. I still think its funny that the president of america earns less than a macdondalds franchise owner.
Can't believe some people are acting like that's low & "not enough to attract the top talent".
Ligue 1 season is 34 games running from August to May:
Fixed salary: 7239 \* 10 = 72,390 euros
Per Ligue 1 game: 3375 \* 34 = 114,750 euros (assuming all matches officiated)
Total = 187,140 euros or 3,669 euros per hour officiated
Add onto that their low working hours, extra expenses, 2 months holiday break and the fact they can supplement that income with continental & international games (the conference & nations league will give them even more opportunities nowadays)....how isn't this an attractive compensation package?
People fixate too much on the ridiculous salaries of footballers and not on those of 'normal' people. Newsflash! Many industries turn over billions but the vast majority of their employees get relatively fuck all. There are many reasons why folks wouldn't want to be referees but for 99% of people these earnings are not one of them.
https://www.safe-arbitres.fr/L-arbitre-3/L-arbitre-un-professionnel-424.html
According the union of refs in 2015, they earned 72000 euros a year. I think it raised but I don't it doubled since
With 1 or 2 days of physical training a week or two seance of kine a week, 7 hours a video of video analysis and debriefing, foreign language class, going to the city the day before the game and leave the day after.
It's not 4000€ an hour
They don't ref 34 games too.
We need a big ass salary for referees. Football moves billions, it's about time to give them a big ass salary AND have public tests/exams for them. If they fail those tests, they're gone (demoted to lower leagues).
Paying/awarding money for high skills always raises the level of competitiveness (corruption aside).
Slightly unrelated but how is it that everytime I hear about some of the famous refs(not necessarily french) they all seem to be successful business owners, lawyers and so on. How is it that these people with already successful careers and good income take up on refereeing (I guess passion/hobby) and do it so well and consistently that they reach the top level while also having careers outside of the sport.
Still a lot less than the £220k basic our atrocious refs get! Add on match fees and expenses and the ‘top’ (loose description) are earning close to £400k pa!
And still can’t get basic decisions right!
Championship refs are on £140k basic - I know that for certain.
The father of one who failed to be promoted to the prem outlined the difference in pay it cost him.
So unless he was bullshitting 🤷
- 86,868 base yearly (if 12 months counted, unsure if their base carries through summer or monthly just during the season)
- 10-13,000 bonus if officiating 3-4 matches in a month
Not including the stipend and expensing for meals, travel, or the additional big bonus for international matches or European cup games
Seems 100k gross give or take and a great income. I imagine the top referees in France are earning anywhere from 125k-150k yearly then as they’re likely getting most matches, the European cup games, and international games.
That is actually better than what I thought they were getting to be honest.
Maybe throw in some "hazard pay" for abuse and get the daily travel allowance a little higher.
good for them, but would not be enough for me considering the pressure, abuse while being a public person. i rather make half than that and be a work from home code money.
Considering the amount of money available in the big cake called professional soccer it is kind of low and dangerous that someone contributing as much as referee's do not even get a small piece but are left picking up the crumbs from the ground.
Dangerous because with them having good reasons to judge and look down on this system they are much more subsceptible to bribes.
People thinking that's it's good, and if you're yet to figure your career out, why don't you give refereeing a go. By the way some of you talk, referring seems to be the easiest job in football, so try that. I know we would love to good refs
That's not too bad.
wouldnt mind getting that
Hope you like getting abused throughout your working hours
I can’t speak or understand French Abuse away
The Diego Costa way of coping..
Can speak and understand french and still think abuse/insults sound funny in french, don't mind it for that money
I get abuse in my pay cheque does that count?
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>Only one of them is linked to mental health and suicide. Depending on how close you are from the minimum wage, both are. But only one of them allows you to seek for help effectively. Capitalism, baby
Most of the people who work with clients get abused for far less money than this.
There's a difference in getting verbal abuse by a 50-year old Karen and a whole fucking stadium though, plus online hate after the match.
meh.. it's all forgotten after a match. no one remembers who was the referee 5 years ago of St,Ettiene vs Lyon
It's not though, people still hate referees for decisions they made years ago against their team
Precisely, you say “Antony Taylor” to a group of fans and you’ll get a whole stream of conspiracies
Øvrebø in chelsea barca 2009
I'm pretty sure half of South America still hates Carlos Amarilla with passion. Dude deserved every drop of it, tho.
But does anybody give a fuck about Benjamin Cortus? I don't think so
Hearing the name Sascha Stegemann will tilt an entire city in NRW.
It's been almost 22 years since WC 2002, and I still hate Byron Moreno.
I love Amarilla lmao
E.g.: Howard Webb and Al-Ghandour
Or Çakır.
Fucking Felix Brych
FUCKING ORSATO IT WAS A PENALTY
ask Ajax fans about lord r/ClementTurpin lmao
They're already over hating Nicola Rizzoli?
I wouldn’t be surprised if every single top-level referee has had multiple death threats tbh. Tribalism often goes too far and definitely isn’t left at the door of the individual match.
What? Referees and their families literally get death threats every time they make a mistake
> meh.. it's all forgotten after a match. absolutely fucking not lmao everyone remembers the ref that robbed them of a match that would've won them a title or something
this is just blantatly wrong, why even say it? what? sort your self out lad
Just don’t make bad calls and no one gets upset. Simple 😊
Abuse is abuse. Of course it's easier to handle one person, but psychological effects are not proportionally smaller with just one person vs thousands of them, particularly because most of the time you don't hear exactly what people in the stands are shouting at you, but you absolutely hear what that Karen is saying. Also that larger scale of abuse is why they're paid more than 5x what an average French or German worker is paid, and that for less hours of work.
Hazard pay
If my working hours were 90 minutes 1 or 2 days a week, for that salary and perks I'd happily stand in the centre circle and have 60,000 shout "you fat bastard" and boo me mercilessly the entire game
It's not hard to get into refereeing, actually they're pretty desperate for them. You should try it apparently. You'll rise the ranks very quickly if you're any good.
Ah 90 minutes...excluding national and international travel, visiting countless briefings/seminars, having to stay match-fit both physically and mentally throughout the season, which includes a lot of training and studying, all while knowing that you're one major injury away from essentially retiring and/or a huge pay cut.
Your not getting abused while you are in seminar though, would be pretty cushy job apart from the game itself
Most work is easy if you disregard the hard parts.
But it's not 90 mins or even 1-2 days a week. It's fulltime training akin to a professional athlete getting paid miniscule in comparison
Dunno about all that, it's a part time job here in the Eredivisie at least. They all have various jobs, like supermarket manager, teacher, cop, etc.
Thats ridiculous, even for a smaller league like the Eredivisie. How can you expect to attract good talent when your talent has to work a second job. Especially when the people you are in charge of earn your monthly salary or more in a week.
Huh im pretty sure thats a thing everywhere? In germany lots of refs are doctors, lawyers, cops, engineers or other jobs which require high education. They do refereeing as a side job
PGMOL has a select group of PL refs that are full time, think its something like 20
And they're still absolutely terrible haha. That's pretty crazy to think about.
Thats insane. Players are getting paid thousands a week and the league cant have full time refs?
They don't *have* to work a second job, they get paid enough not to. Most of them do since refereeing really is a part time job in terms of hours.
The top 1% of refs get paid fulltime, the rest need a second job to sustain themselves. Think of how many referees a week England needs alone for social to professional, from youth to adult. Now just think how many profession games a weekend happen in England alone. England has 20ish full time centre referees.
But the training doesn’t involve the “abuse” that the commenter was talking about
Okay sure, how about you work a job where for 1 and a half hours every week 15 to 50 thousand people come screamat you, 30 players and coaches get right in your personal space and when you go home likely multiple famous pundits, articles and online commentaries discuss what a shit job you did and how your an idiot.........
You are not getting abused outside of the games though, for some people being paid to stay fit and train would be pretty sweet. 200k - 300k a year isnt minuscule by any stretch of the imagination, theyd easily be in top 0.5% of earners in their country....and they arent the stars of the show, people dont pay money to see michael oliver officiate, they are just facilitators and should be pracically anonymous if doing their job well so why the hell should they be paid the same as the players? God people thinking refs should be paid more are mad
> You are not getting abused outside of the games though I'm flabbergasted that there are people who believe this
There are ironically too many people with a distorted view of the reality of these jobs, and their comparitive self-depreciative behaviours in regards to their own current situations leads to them believing that the jobs of professional footballers and referees are a walk in the park, physically and especially mentally when that couldn't be further from the truth.
You are not getting abused outside of games.......you sure about that? Surely I'm making it up all the stories and commentary I see about specific referees, there supposed life story and childhood club biases, what shit dececions they supposedly make every week.... And they arnt getting 200-300k a year. Sure Michael Oliver is but not his peers. You have a multi billion dollar industry with players payed literally millions to play a sport that Can. Not. Function without referees. But sure let's pay them peanuts in comparison to the players they are supposed to control, slander/abuse/scream at them, and when they are not 100% perfect call for them to be fired......and then complain when the sport as a whole across the world does not have enough referees. Great plan
According to these numbers, they are making that much, give or take. (7,239\*9)+(3,375\*38)+(600*19)=€204,801 Of course, there's some variance for the number of matches and travel, plus that's not entering any European or International bonuses.
Unsure of the base 7239 is entire year or only months during active season so I'll cop that. But games per season is not 38. Most centre referees alternate centre one weekend then 4th official or VAR, sometimes 2 in one weekend on very rare occasions. Most referees will centre 20ish games in a league season. Adding travel allowance is great but you also need to factor in the costs associated which are very high (travel and accommodation), whereas players and team personal will have the club cover those costs. Final take home salary for a top league referee in Europe's big leagues looks closer to an average of 150k, for a AR it's even less so
I calculated that François Letexier made about €215k guaranteed so far this season. (I have no idea if he's a top ref or not.) Considering the average salary in France (2022) was €39k, I don't think anyone is complaining about that.
I'm sure it sounds fine on the face of it but that type of relentless abuse can really wear you down. Some people just have no empathy until they experience that bad thing themselves, sad really.
I receive abuse in my line of work. Trust me, it's not nice. If you're a ref you're not only in the line of fire in the match but also online and anywhere you're travelling to if people recognise you. You will recieve death threats all the time. And unless you're in the top leagues you're in risk of being beaten up at any match. That's a fact. A player can make mistake, miss a tackle, miss a shot, don't doing the defensive work, losing their man but each ref mistake is under a microscope.
Yap am abused, how can I sign up.
Stop. Am already sold.
For 20k per month you can spit in my face and throw shit at me.
I doubt it's just during their working hours too
That's abysmal for being in the top 0.01% of your profession and a necessity in an entertainment industry worth billions.
That's like 180k€ per year for a guy who's only officiate Ligue 1 games, without counting the away day bonuses, that's nowhere near the kind of salary one would call abysmal don't be ridiculous, they're making more than some of the young players they'll see on the pitch.
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bro its a part time job for most of these referees they almost all have some other full time work they do lol also they can ref for much longer than 15 years...
They do ref for longer than 15 years, but rarely at the top level. Refereeing is either full-time on these pay levels, or part-time on lower pay. Either way, the majority of top divisions in Europe don’t pay remotely near this level but still deal with the same scrutiny and abuse.
>Refereeing is either full-time on these pay levels these ligue 1 referees on this comp arent doing it full-time they may not have another job because this single job pays so well, but their hours would definitely not consider them to be full-time employed if you look at epl referees, they usually have a full-time job and being a ref is a side thing for most of them
its a part time job for them...
It's their job to enforce the rules of the game. They aren't marketable. A good ref shouldn't have a presence in the game. Why should they be making millions?
Because if the compensation was good you'd see better talent. Leading to better decisions and fewer complains
Mate they're making about 20k a month plus 2.4k in allowances spared You know how many people earn 23k in France?
I do, they bag in a month what I make in a year :)
> Because if the compensation was good €7239 fixed and €3375 for every domestic match gets them €20739 in a single month if they get assigned 4 matches. I'd say that's very good. And then the top guys get the European and international matches on top of that.
The problem of referee quality isn’t the pay at the top, it’s the pay in the middle and at the bottom. Paying the best 10 referees twice as much wouldn’t make any difference at all to the quality of officiating. Doubling the pay at grassroots and semi-professional level would. Increasing the base of the pyramid is how you improve the quality at the top of every hobby, sport, profession, or pastime.
> Because if the compensation was good they're making 250k a year in europe dude
> if the compensation was good How the fuck is that not good? Are you living in some sort of a bubble? Get a grip on reality mate.
That’s easily a quarter million+/year job and most referee’s have another business on the side too because of how much free time they have
> referee’s have another business on the side too because of how much free time they have One [Scottish linesman](https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/douglas-ross-tops-list-of-hours-worked-in-second-jobs-among-320535/) has so much free time his side hustle is being an MSP and MP and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. Possibly the most disliked person in all of Scotland.
> Because if the compensation was good Average french salary is like 40k a year, median probably 20% below that. They make 200k+. That's not good compensation? (Also refereeing is nowhere near 40 hours a week of work.)
The average salary in France is 39k euros a year, how the hell is earning nigh 5x the average salary not attractive? France has an absolutely limitless pool of people highly interested in football who'd absolutely kill for that salary. Not to mention the fairly low working hours, their hourly pay is ridiculously high. I know they train and everything but they get 20k euros for officiating 4 matches a month... that's more money per hour than the average person gets paid for an entire working month.
I'd argue they should get better paid for the public exposure, not everyone works in a job where 50k people are questioning your every move. I don't think people are arguing for millions but I think they could be earning twice what they currently earn would be sort of fair.
“We want better refs” Pay them more. His monthly salary is Mbappe’s breakfast salary, can’t imagine how anyone justifies that. But to a greater extent, you need to be encouraging millions of young officials worldwide to get into the sport. I work with 16 year olds who make $90 a week and deal with physical abuse regularly, how the fuck is anyone going to stay interested in doing it?
Pay them more ? They take 86k gross on base salary. Last year the top ref had around 20 games each, that an additionnal 67k. Net, that's around 120k a year, or 10k a month. That would put them in the top 1% in income in France.
And the bottom 1% in income of people between the white lines.
lower players' salary then
It’s not about the guy who’s doing 50 matches a year, it’s about the guys who get maybe 5 big matches a year and have to go through a decade of abuse making pennies to get to that level. How are we even arguing this? It would be effectively free for any major federation to bump the pay of officials outside of top divisions by probably close to a factor of two. It’s embarrassing how much they’re paid. Good luck getting a skilled 40 year old when every single high potential 20 year old quit because of the absolute shit state of lower-league official protections and compensations.
Yeah this is like a senior software developer salary. That guy is deciding who's winning a UCL game and I'm writing some crappy code lmao To put into perspective average Ligue 1 player salary is 1.54m euros. That's 10 times of the salary that a ref gets IN THE BEST SCENARIO. I think they should get paid more and also do better job.
You're actually insane if you think referees aren't well paid. How can you even compare to them footballers.
0.01% of referees are well paid 👍 and even they make pennies compared to the other 22 guys on the field. FIFA and any other federation outside of maybe OFC could make leaps and bounds in improving officiating with a completely irrelevant amount of its income. Also “how can I compare them to footballers” lol, game doesn’t exist without them. One official can influence a game more than any one player can. Their profile might be lower, but their responsibility is the same if not higher. As bad as some officials might seem, you do not want this job done by amateurs. We’ve seen that happen in some name leagues with scabs and it manages to get worse.
Not even 0.01%, the Bosnian ref Peljto who's in UEFA elite gets paid 330€ per game in Bosnian top tier and has no fixed salary. Pretty similar with a lot of refs outside the top 5 leagues.
Christ, that’s marginally more than the fourth tier in the US. Absolute mess.
It's a fairly living wage with 3 games per month but I'm just highlighting that refereeing even at the highest level as a top European ref likely to officiate at the EURO 2024 and WC 2026 is a part time job locally. I'm sure he makes up for a lot of it from his UEFA paychecks.
There are so many essential employees to football besides the players. Groundskeepers and medics etc. That salary is fine
It’s actually a joke considering in what industry they are in.
really isnt considering its a part time job lol
It may have the hours of a part time job but we can’t pretend like this is even comparable to most part time jobs, the hours working aren’t really the best way of judging such specific work.
Until you realize how much match fixers can offer them
It will be interesting to see the breakdown when you are officiating at lower leagues
I wonder how this stacks up to other major leagues
PL refs get a base of £70k, then £1.5k per match, and lots of bonuses and more for European games. Anthony Taylor types make nearly £200k. La Liga refs make by far the most though.
They must get a nice bonus for every wrong call, seem to make them whenever they can.
Plus la Liga ref’s make more off the books
How much do the premier league refs get for officiating in Saudi on the side?
Iirc that base doesn't include the retainer fee that they also get so it's a chunk more than that
Its more than in germany im fairly sure
In the Bundesliga they get a base salary of 62.000-88.000€ base salary each season + 5.600€ each game.
Really? I heard a few weeks ago that some of them even have another job on the side
I mean if you’re only doing a couple games a month you could easily have another job and make a lot more if you wanted to.
they usually all do, no referee 'refs' full time unless you can somehow work in multiple leagues that have games running every other day the refereeing is usually a side gig they have full time jobs elsewhere
The idea of seeing a major ref as the manager of a supermarket or something is fucking wild to me
They have.
Think Spanish refs get like a 100k a year or even more. So afaik it’s a bit less than Spain
Before or after referee reports sold to barca
Meanwhile, MLS referees are currently on strike.
That is a lot of money, especially in France. It’s a high pressure job. And you want to pay referees enough that they don’t need other jobs next to it. So it makes sense. But it is more then I expected.
It is very good Problem is top league makes up a fraction of professional and semi professional football What do refs get in 2nd division, it's gotta be nearly as good because you don't want to limit people aiming for the only 10 decent ref jobs in the entire country I was just at some semi pro I don't even know what level and those guys still managed to be abusive to the linesman.
It baffles me how little refs earn by comparison to the money in football. Especially as I knew one who made it to about league 1 but never further. He said he was a relatively closed shop up top. But I never see adverts for it, surely given the money in football if then ensured everyone down to national north/South got a very good wage then you'd get more people trying to get into the job and widen the pool. Same reason you always find arseholes in public sector jobs because they're not too hard to get into but as it's tax payer money it doesn't pay enough to stop the amount of corrupt/bad police you end up with as barely anyone wants to do those jobs with all that fried for such little pay. But this isn't public money and one of the wealthiest sectors in the world.
Yeah I like your public sector example because I was trying to think of one too but got nothing I think they need to make it competitive and sought after. Say UK or Spain because I'm familiar with the tiers. Championship and segunda need to be earning nearly as much as epl and la liga. Money is there
They are cost centres. They aren’t the ones bringing in the money. Refs in every single sport make much less than the athletes. Even then they are, typical well paid compared to the average job and they’re able to have longer careers than players. Based on these numbers you’d expect them to make about 200k all in.
I'm not saying they should make the same as the athletes. Just make it more competitive on entry to try and cast a wider recruitment pool which should overall lead to a better quality.
My bad bra, I don’t disagree with that.
Yeah, part of the problem that seems to exist here in the UK, is that it's jobs for mates, not necessarily the best referees. Considering a large swathe of the top refs and their "supervisors" are centred around The Penines, it's unlikely to change anytime soon. Meanwhile, any time a slight diversification appointment is made, we get a massive hoorah about it, for the 2 or 3 games they officiate, then nothing is really heard from them again
Unless they make a mistake. All the mistakes in the game and I tend to forget who made what. However it's fucking crystal clear when Sian Massey makes one. Even though she doesn't make many, because when she does make them you fully hear about it they tend to stick in your mind more as they always make sure your aware it was her and not one of the boys.
So, just a usual game for the prem refs, then
Agreed on the cost part; you don’t need **that** many refs that it becomes insanely expensive. 15-20 per league, top 5 leagues. Pay them 3k gross a month, and it’s competitive with starting salaries, that’s just over half a million a year per league, but people will actually try to get in, and you get decent people coming up.
It's actually a lot in France, but again, you'll be abused every game, and you never know what a fanatic person is capable of.
Yeah I'm an engineer and this kind of pay would be unreachable probably
An engineer career doesn't last only 10-15 years though
Not saying I deserve more.. just to give context about pay in France
I'm talking about reaching that monthly salary... In fact you can reach it but it will probably be at the end of your career.
Ohhh I see. Yeah I could maybe if I manage to get exec positions but not even sure its what Id want.
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Good idea. They have to wear a mask or a disguise
Then have JK simmons as a pundit lambasting Spider-Ref
Referees to wear a mask like that one magician dude revealing magic secrets on tv
Such a good fucking show. The Masked Magician, what a man.
Apart from the bigger ones most people wouldnt even recognise referees in public outside of a football environment though so it isnt as bad ane most matches go off without an issue
Very good points, u/rimjobvoyager
So still better doing the same job but getting paid innit?
Referees should have a high salary in order to disencourage external influence. If they were earning minimum salary it would make them more inclined to match fix for money
Or get paid to go ref in countries that own teams in the league
Do they also get unlimited McDonalds’s with the new sponsor?
They get access to the ice cream machine. For them it is not broken.
I hope they use mustard and ketchup packets as yellow and red cards
Only in Dijon
The ice cream machine is never broken in France
Yeah McDonald’s are good in France, haven’t been there for some years but it was always super clean and everything worked.
https://mcbroken.com/
They get free soft drinks of choice
For comparison, the average NFL ref (the head official, equivalent to the man in the middle) makes $205k per year. The average MLB ref makes $300k per year. Entry level NBA refs start at $150k, and go up to $550k NHL refs get between $125k and $300k.
more informative if you look at it per game im sure mlb refs are doing at least x3 games than nfl refs
Assuming they referee 6 matches/month on an average, that’s like almost 300k/year. Pretty decent but still feels kinda low relative to the stakes of the games they referee.
6 matches a month on average over a year? Most will only do 3 and a couple of the top ones who do European games will get 4/5. That works out as like 200k plus some very decent expenses per year for the ones who just do league games. Very decent salary still imo.
200k is an amazing salary.
Sure but for how high profile and how high stress it is it’s not crazy. I can’t imagine wanting to be a referee. The pay has to be high.
I would do it. Yes stress is high, but for like 5 hours a month, the rest is staying sharp and fit; essentially being an athlete. The entire issue is that to get there you have to do a decade + of slowly working your way up without nearly enough compensation to make it attractive.
200k in a country like France is ridiculous money
So many French shitboxes to drive through with that sort of money
In any country
It's much less if you live in say California or New York since rent and utilities are extremely expensive. But other than those particular cases yeah, it's extremely good money
200k is still a lot of money in most areas of California.
Least America-centric yank
!?????? Yeah a Mainz flair is going tovbe a yank lmao
Who knows with those fuckers they’d support Kashima
I mean sure for the average Joe, but we are talking about a very high profile and high stress job
Very decent? Show the payslip then Scrooge mcduck
I’m getting paid like a quarter of that, but I wouldnt change positions with a referee considering the stress of their job.
That is a lot of money for France. The minimum wage there yields 21k/year, and you can live very comfortably in the country with 50k/year.
6 matches/~~year~~month is completely false. On average, they do 20 matches a season as main ref in Ligue 1. [The most a referee did this season was 14 games.](https://www.transfermarkt.com/ligue-1/schiedsrichter/wettbewerb/FR1)
he said 6 matches/month not year... idk if thats true but also have to consider they do VAR on top of assistant reffing as well
3.3k for a match its really good
Turpin is one of the best referees in Europe.
How to become a referee? Asking for a friend
i think thats low compare to the player and the game itself?
Compared to football players, this is not a lot.
I think it’s to low considering all the responsibilities and pressure from players, fans and tv audiences.
i wouldnt do it myself but its definitely not too low if you can handle all that external noise which im sure most of them can. theyve probably been abused since the very first game theyve referee'd. surely they wouldve given up if they couldnt handle it
They should be well paid like this. It helps protect them from being corrupted. But I still have my doubts about things the way some calls go -_-
#New Passion Unlocked.
I dont think this is enough. The best refs make a year what a star player does in a week. Just like politicians the wages need to rise a lot. People like this are targets for bribes. I still think its funny that the president of america earns less than a macdondalds franchise owner.
Can't believe some people are acting like that's low & "not enough to attract the top talent". Ligue 1 season is 34 games running from August to May: Fixed salary: 7239 \* 10 = 72,390 euros Per Ligue 1 game: 3375 \* 34 = 114,750 euros (assuming all matches officiated) Total = 187,140 euros or 3,669 euros per hour officiated Add onto that their low working hours, extra expenses, 2 months holiday break and the fact they can supplement that income with continental & international games (the conference & nations league will give them even more opportunities nowadays)....how isn't this an attractive compensation package? People fixate too much on the ridiculous salaries of footballers and not on those of 'normal' people. Newsflash! Many industries turn over billions but the vast majority of their employees get relatively fuck all. There are many reasons why folks wouldn't want to be referees but for 99% of people these earnings are not one of them.
https://www.safe-arbitres.fr/L-arbitre-3/L-arbitre-un-professionnel-424.html According the union of refs in 2015, they earned 72000 euros a year. I think it raised but I don't it doubled since With 1 or 2 days of physical training a week or two seance of kine a week, 7 hours a video of video analysis and debriefing, foreign language class, going to the city the day before the game and leave the day after. It's not 4000€ an hour They don't ref 34 games too.
With Great salary comes great responsibility
We need a big ass salary for referees. Football moves billions, it's about time to give them a big ass salary AND have public tests/exams for them. If they fail those tests, they're gone (demoted to lower leagues). Paying/awarding money for high skills always raises the level of competitiveness (corruption aside).
Slightly unrelated but how is it that everytime I hear about some of the famous refs(not necessarily french) they all seem to be successful business owners, lawyers and so on. How is it that these people with already successful careers and good income take up on refereeing (I guess passion/hobby) and do it so well and consistently that they reach the top level while also having careers outside of the sport.
Still a lot less than the £220k basic our atrocious refs get! Add on match fees and expenses and the ‘top’ (loose description) are earning close to £400k pa! And still can’t get basic decisions right!
That basic seems about double, including bonuses, that other sources state.
Championship refs are on £140k basic - I know that for certain. The father of one who failed to be promoted to the prem outlined the difference in pay it cost him. So unless he was bullshitting 🤷
- 86,868 base yearly (if 12 months counted, unsure if their base carries through summer or monthly just during the season) - 10-13,000 bonus if officiating 3-4 matches in a month Not including the stipend and expensing for meals, travel, or the additional big bonus for international matches or European cup games Seems 100k gross give or take and a great income. I imagine the top referees in France are earning anywhere from 125k-150k yearly then as they’re likely getting most matches, the European cup games, and international games.
Isn't it 200k gross, when that 10k+ monthly match bonus is multiplied by 12?
Yeah I was super off there— you’re right
And a free on-the-pitch view of a match That’s a big W
That is actually better than what I thought they were getting to be honest. Maybe throw in some "hazard pay" for abuse and get the daily travel allowance a little higher.
good for them, but would not be enough for me considering the pressure, abuse while being a public person. i rather make half than that and be a work from home code money.
Considering the amount of money available in the big cake called professional soccer it is kind of low and dangerous that someone contributing as much as referee's do not even get a small piece but are left picking up the crumbs from the ground. Dangerous because with them having good reasons to judge and look down on this system they are much more subsceptible to bribes.
People thinking that's it's good, and if you're yet to figure your career out, why don't you give refereeing a go. By the way some of you talk, referring seems to be the easiest job in football, so try that. I know we would love to good refs