Honest question: I’m a longtime premier league fan from the US. In my over 10 years of watching English football, I’ve never seen a person of color as the center referee in a premier league match. Does anyone know why this is? A significant percentage (majority) of premier league players are not white, and given research around subconscious bias, you have to imagine the league and refereeing body would have an interest in having their game officials be representative of the players they officiate? With the quality of officiating being in the news so much recently, increasing diversity in the ranks of game officials could be one idea. I imagine it’s just a big old boys club though…
There’s been articles on this in recent years. It seems black referees in particular move up the refereeing ranks and then once it starts getting to serious professional levels the FA or a referees body (I’m not sure which) just doesn’t put them through to the next level so they can’t move up the leagues anymore which surely has to be questioned by the football governing bodies.
There was a black premier league referee many years ago called Uriah Rennie and he was very good. It’s a shame he’s been the only one.