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The Laws of the Game changes for 2026-2027 are announced by IFAB. Below you find the summary of the changes. What is the most interesting change for you? What will work? You can also download the full text at IFAB. Law 3 – The Players Continue reading...

Laws of the Game Quiz 2025-2026 #04. You’ll find the quiz answers right after submitting the questions via a button you’ll see there. Good luck with the quiz! You can make it below or straight in Google Forms. Clips for the quiz Below you’ll find the links to all 5 clips, which I uploaded for educational purposes on the Box Platform. They are there to learn from and I hope you like this new quiz type. Laden… Continue reading...

Sprint exercises for referees are a good way to improve your top speed or to maintain the ability to repeat your sprint during the game. The following exercise is a nice, interactive exercise to sprint. How the exercise works The exercise is something Mike, a fellow referee at The Hague’s referee assocition, tried during our latest training session. How it works: You start in couples in the middle of the goal The begin is a jog to the edge of the penalty area Then you move sideways with the back towards each other After 10m you change sides and face each other Reaching the next blue cone, the person on the left names a colour Based on what the “leader” said, you sprint towards the coloured cones that are near the halfwayline You then...

High-intensity exercise #11 is something I’ve seen in a training schedule by Uefa. You work on the speed end. After a sprint from the halfway line to the penalty area, you have a short recovery jog and then have a high intensity run to the other goal area. And you do that twice. When I gave the training session at the Referee Association in The Hage the start of our training seemed quite relaxed with a pyrimid exercises jogging to cone 1, then 2 and so on. Just jogging, but then it was time for the upcoming exercises, with some short accelerations in between to be prepared for this. Good luck! How the exercise works The exercise is something I saw a Uefa referee do. They run 4 laps of this in approximately 3 minutes. In my training...

Laws of the Game Quiz 2025-2026 #03. You’ll find the quiz answers right after submitting the questions via a button you’ll see there. Good luck with the quiz! You can make it below or straight in Google Forms. Clip for question 1 Below you’ll find the clip for question 1 of the quiz. It’s a clip on Instagram. Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken Een bericht gedeeld door Bundesliga (@bundesliga) Laden… Continue reading...

Preventing the goalkeeper from releasing the ball is a tricky thing. In quiz 2 of 2025-2026 many referees wanted to see a yellow card there, but that’s most of the times not correct by law. Here’s how you should handle as a referee. Clip of an attacker getting the ball Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken Een bericht gedeeld door DAZN Belgium (@dazn_be) The laws about the restart Laws of the game are clear about the restart and the sanction. Firstly, we go to the restart of play after such an offence. “An indirect free kick is awarded if a player (…) prevents the goalkeeper from releasing the ball from the hands or...

Laws of the Game Quiz 2025-2026 #02. You’ll find the quiz answers right after submitting the questions via a button you’ll see there. During quiz 1 the majority wanted 2 quizzes per month, so I’ll do 2 shorter quizzes then and try to get 1 video in each. Good luck with the quiz! You can make it below or straight in Google Forms. Clip for question 1 Below you’ll find the clip for question 1 of the quiz. It’s a clip on Instagram. Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken Een bericht gedeeld door Sai el Haddaoui (@future_football_profs) Laden… Continue reading...

Laws of the Game Quiz 2025-2026 #01. You’ll find the quiz answers right after submitting the questions via a button you’ll see there. At the end you’ll also get a poll about how often and how many questions you’d like (weekl/monthly/text/video, etc.) Good luck with the quiz! You can make it below or straight in Google Forms. Clip for question 1 Below you’ll find the clip for question 1 of the quiz. It’s a clip on Instagram. Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken Een bericht gedeeld door Sai el Haddaoui (@future_football_profs) Laden… Continue reading...

FIFA referee Ghada Mehat shares her favourite fitness exercise. “It’s 2 high intensity blocks of 10 minutes of the FIFA fitness test at 15-15”. The Algerian match official runs the 75m high-intensity run in 15 seconds, but has shorter rest than normal. 15 seconds rest instead of 18. Have you ever tried that? See below how that goes. Benefits for Ghada Mehat in her games You run the “normal” FIFA test with a high-intensity run of 75 metres. The big difference is a shorter rest period. Normally a FIFA test consists of 40 runs, Ghada Mehat runs the test in two blocks of 10 minutes. Depending on your own physical ability you can adapt the length of your rest period. And how does it help Ghada Mehat in her games? “It helps us in matches...

A growth mindset for referees is crucial. It’s a mindset that looks for chances, seeks for development. No matter your age or level, you can become a better referee. Some strategies to adopt a growth mindset. Continue reading...

The difference between a referee with a growth mindset and one with a static (or fixed) mindset lies in how they perceive their abilities, handle challenges, respond to feedback, and approach improvement. This blog post focuses on “What defines the difference between a referee with a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset”. I’ve also written another blog post that shares strategies that referees can use to adopt and maintain a growth mindset 1. Attitude Toward Challenges Growth Mindset: Sees challenges as opportunities to learn and improve. Believes effort and persistence can lead to better outcomes. Thrives in situations that push them out of their comfort zone, like officiating high-pressure matches or adapting to new rules. Static...

Agility exercises for referees will help enhance their footwork and ability to change direction quickly. These agility drills, such as cone drills or ladder drills, are crucial for maintaining optimal positioning during dynamic play. In this blog post some reasons why these type of exercises will help you as a referee. The stills in this blog post are from the AFC video channel. In recent series they follow their top level referees. From 16 minutes in episode one you’ll see some examples of those referee drills. AFC referee fitness instructor Banjar Al-Dosari says that the referees need to be top at every level and mentions agility as one of the training areas. 1. Quick changes of direction Referees need to constantly adjust their...

Referee Sandra Bastos on fitness: “never stop completely when season ends”. Bastos is Portugese Elite referee in the European competitions. This applies to the summer break, but also for the winter period. She shares how she spends her time in the break, so her body will be ready when the games begin. Continue to be active Sandra Bastos was happy to share her experiences with the readers of Dutch Referee Blog. On the 12th of December she officiated in Uefa’s Women’s Champions League (Manchester City vs Sankt Pölten) and on the 22nd a game in her own country. That were here final games of 2024. “For me, a crucial factor is to never stop completely when the season ends”, she says. Her advice: “continue to be active, continue with...

Laws of the Game Quiz 2024-2025 #3 December. The final quiz of the year. With 1 clip, then 8 questions that were used in the 2024 big referee quiz on this blog. Good luck with the quiz! Laden… Continue reading...

The stepped approach for referees in managing players is crucial. By building up your management and disciplinairy decisions, the actions you take feel logic towards the players. But this doesn’t mean it always starts without a card, sometimes a higher step on the ladder is more appropriate. In this blog post you’ll learn more about the stepped approach. And I’d love to hear how this works for you in your games. What is the stepped approach? When you manage players you want to give clear signals what you tolerate, because then everyone can understand the decisions. After a verbal warning, a yellow card wouldn’t come as a surprise normally. So what are the steps you can take? Just a free kick Free kick and personal warning. Or a quiet...

Positioning learnings from the Klassieker Ajax vs Feyenoord. Clips from my game. Continue reading...

So I decided to do a blog of my experiences as a grassroots youth football referee. And here it is: https://grassrootsreferee.blog/

The second Laws of the Game Quiz of 2024-2025. I try to maintain the clip, but might publish a quiz less frequently. This is a test with 10 questions instead of 5. And a few clips this time. How is that for you? Plus one of the video questions will also be published as case study to explain the situation. You can always practise previous quizzes on this overview page. And after submitting your answers, you can see the correct answers immediately. The video is added to the form. Laden… Continue reading...

The new guideline in most countries for referee protests is: only the captain can approach the referee. It started at the European Championships and was successful. And as Björn Kuipers, now UEFA Referee Committe member says in a video message: “We need to take bad behaviour seriously”. But how do you apply this in your games? In this blog post some practical guidelines and advice for match officials. The basics of this new guideline The laws already had options to deal with dissent or protests, but despite that referees are “regularly subjected to verbal and/or physical dissent”. That’s how IFAB, the governing body of the football laws, describres it. “It sometimes results in players running at the referee and surrounding or mobbing...

High-intensity exercise #8 from Switzerland. This exercise is run by Swiss referees in the 3rd and 4th Division and was suggested by a blog reader. How the exercise works The exercise is shared with me on Instagram. Below I share the steps on how to run. Check for yourself how intense this one is, so you can adapt the repetition to your ability and liking. Start with a jog at 60% from goal-line to halfway line. Then add some some speed and sprint to the other goal-line. Slowly jog 5-10 metres parallel to the goal-line and walk to the halfway line then. Next step: jog at 60% to the goal-line where you started Slowly jog 5-10 metres parallel to the goal-line Then a full pitch-length sprint follows Slowly jog 5-10 metres parallel to...