Top Leagues - Referees' salary/wage

PLF

PLF

Legend
2 August 2004
One thing I've been curious about for as long as I can remember but never bothered asking anyone or doing a search for it myself (not that I'd get anywhere since I'm pretty much a newb and usually can't find what I want if its a bit hard to find) is a question about referee's and how much they earn?

Do the referees like Mike Riley in EPL or Serie A and Ligue 1 / La Liga and Bundesliga and basically top leagues of world make good money? If so.. do we have any rough estimates from a document or some place mentioned that can be trusted as reliable source or does nobody have a clue?

Hopefully someone can shed some light on this topic for us with some facts and figures.
 
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Hmmm £50, 000 to £60,000 per year then roughly. Not bad but when you think of the abuse they have to take lol... just kiddin.. has enough good things bout it too i suppose.

Thanks DB, was interesting read and last question is funny hahaa

The basic salary for being a professional referee is £35,000 a year but on top of that we get paid match fees which work out at £500 per match plus expenses. International referees will get paid match fees and daily allowances as well. I guess at the end of the day you’re talking anywhere between about £50, 000 to £60,000.
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I wonder if other leagues are roughly same now or if their referees of Serie A for example are richer or La Liga or pretty much same.
 
It could be argued, that a pretty decent salary now the FA refs are "professional" has led to many of them becomming more high profile, and in turn of the belief that they are more important than they are.

I'm thinking someone like Jeff Winter or David Ellery really.

db
 
I think refs are far too easy targets....
Most refs are good, i think UEFA, FIFA and national federations should protect their refs more.
How often do manager complain about so-called match decision errors of referees. They always have the benefit of hindsight and modern technology and they tend to forget that their strikers missed 4 or 5 sitters...not to mention the tactical errors they committed...
If refs make blatant errors however (like the Spurs goal against Man Utd last season)this should be conceded and rectified without victimising the ref...
In short: their job is the toughest on a football pitch and they deserve some credit (and money) for it...
 
Is it really still around 50k per year for people like Howard Webb and other EPL officials!? I would've thought these handful of people make much more than that! Nowhere near the players obviously but not that average either considering they are at all times under ridiculous pressure and have millions watching them. And yeah I know $50K per year isn't really 'average' but it's nothing extraordinary either and I would've expected them to be above this.

Then again, they work a lot less hours for that $50K per year than most others who make that money, don't they? So I guess if you consider how many hours they actually work per week... they end up getting paid quite a lot of $$$ per hour!
 
the thing is, football players are club's employees, while referees get paid by the national federations.
we all know the reasons that, through the decades, brought football clubs to spend a ridiculous ammount of money to pay theese illiterate monkeys (coz let's face it, that's what most football players are).
the national federations on the other side, don't have the same interests. federations don't compete with each others "to sign the best referees", the referees themselves don't even have an agent to discuss their contract..... because they don't even sign a proper contract with the federation (it's more of a private agreement).

in serie a there are different "classes" of referees and refs get paid accordingly to those classes.
Class A: international referees belong to this class (those who also get called up for uefa matches) - 70 k euros per year
class B: referees who get called up for more than 25 serie a matches per season - 60 k
class C: referees who ref less than 25 matches per season - 45k
class D: rookies (referees in their first serie a season) - 30k

keep in mind that those figures are in euros and that they're all "pre-tax figures". so the real ammount of money a class A ref gets is about 50k euros..... wich means about 40k pounds.:))

also keep in mind that (at least in italy) refereeeing isn't a real profession. it's more of a "side job", although a very lucrative one. some refs are lawyers, others are accountants, others are pharmacists... Collina is a business consultant.

so if u consider this, their paycheck is kinda fair. it's not their only profession-related income and yet, a class A referee gains almost as much as a midclass lawyer or surgeon do (and with all due respect for referees, lawyers and surgeons have to deal with much more pressure than a ref).
 
PLF said:
Hmmm £50, 000 to £60,000 per year then roughly. Not bad but when you think of the abuse they have to take lol... just kiddin.. has enough good things bout it too i suppose.
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But this information is only pertinent to some of the top referees who always officiate Premier League games every week. The fact is there are very few full-time referees, most have second jobs (Mike Riley was an accountant, Andy D'Urso does banking work etc.). Heck, I'm not even sure the Premier League or the clubs pay the expenses of travelling to officiate these games and what not.
 
To compare them with players who train everyday and are under training and eating regimes, how long do referees work a week? If they do it only the match day then the money they get is more than enough and as mentioned they can get a side job. They can have a belly like Howard(the cop) and it doesn't matter. There are also the linesmen. Do they get the same money as the referee?
 
I gotten $75.00 to ref (high school) while sidelines ref gets $50.00 . I would never take a bribe ,but I`ll take gatorade! Schools here will paid $3,500 a season to coach . (10 games)
 
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PetrovLFC said:
Blimey, thats more than most Politicians in the UK
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It's not when you add in their expenses....... :P

Who does the worse job ? Politician's here have no vision, no brains and no ability ie Vince Cable criticizing British science.

The moron wouldn't have a clue what a quantum-well laser would be if it hit him in the face. Referees I suppose make honest mistakes which set's them apart.

They're both overpaid for what they do anyway. Now don't get me started on b(w)ankers or footballers. :RANT:
 
ALBICELESTE2010 said:
They're both overpaid for what they do anyway. Now don't get me started on b(w)ankers or footballers. :RANT:
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It's only the bigwigs and those involved in merchant/investment/private banking etc who earn too much in banking, if you walk into your local highstreet branch, the guys in there are earning a lot less than the average wage.
 
Jumbo_ said:
It's only the bigwigs and those involved in merchant/investment/private banking etc who earn too much in banking, if you walk into your local highstreet branch, the guys in there are earning a lot less than the average wage.
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Those are the people I mean Jumbo.

It's always the branch staff who have borne the brunt of the cut's in staffing levels at the banks. Easy target for the head honcho.

I guess if they cock it up again they can call on the good old British taxpayer to bail them out again so they can once earn their obscene bonuses.
 
Yeah it's true, though only RBS, Lloyds and Northen Rock received Government aid so it's unfair to lump all banks in to the same pot. Some are more responsible than others.
 
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