Referees’ allegiances are set to be made public this season, Howard Webb has said.
Nottingham Forest incurred a Football Association charge in May after they criticised the decision to appoint Stuart Attwell – a Luton fan – for their match against Everton where they felt Attwell denied three clear penalty claims.
Webb, the chief refereeing officer for Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), said there were no plans to alter the allegiances rules after Forest insisted it should take “contextual rivalries” into account when making match appointments.
Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept.
We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times.
NFFC will now consider its options.
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) April 21, 2024
However, he did say there were plans afoot to put the allegiances list in the public domain.
“Officials are asked to declare any specific interests in advance of the season, and as the season goes on should any of those things change. That will be made public, I believe, so you can see what that looks like as well and what those declarations of interests are.
“We review each of those and then make a decision (on appointments), because there’s a conflict of interests if you declare yourself as a supporter of a club, or if you’ve played for a club.
“If you’ve got any personal connections to people who work for clubs as well, we’ll make an evaluation of all of those (factors).”
