Top 70 Referee Quotes

Football, or soccer as it is known, is a game of two halves. It’s a game with rules and a referee. FIFA, the governing body for football, follows neither the rule of law or has the oversight of a referee.

I think with my generation, your first game of senior football was often a Sunday League game of football. Sometimes you’re playing on pitches that aren’t great, you’ve no referee, you’ve no goal nets.

A video referee is useful for sure.

Hockey lends itself to special events, including the Olympic competition: a glorious tournament of the best players in the world, putting on their national jerseys and playing on big rinks with no-goon Olympic rules and referee enforcement.

We need to let the referee’s sole thing be to protect the quarterback and get those late hits out of there. They even have a stat on television that says ‘knockdowns.’ Knockdowns means that you knock him down after he throws the ball. The assumption is, if it’s legal, we’ll make excuses for them.

Juventus are specialists because they have the habit to win and the habit to put pressure on the referee. It’s a club with a culture to try to do everything to help the team.

If you are a referee, it’s not easy because everyone wants to win, and so there will be cheating.

It goes without saying that no one at United ever expected any help. We understood that decisions can go against you. We believed we were the better team, and therefore, if the referee got his decisions right, then we would win the vast majority of our games.

MMA has a referee, and you’re wearing gloves. I’m in there with another volunteering participant that’s out there to win some prize money.

Coaches do so much research about a referee because they believe refereeing is such a crucial part of the game that the result may hinge on what we say or do. They probably know more about me than I know myself!

I don’t know that the referee can be watching holding on the offensive line and get back to the quarterback. I think watching the quarterback is a full-time job.

Some of the best preparation I had for coming to Congress is being a football referee. Because you’ve got to make a decision, and no matter what you do, someone’s unhappy with you.

Men over 60 often think that if they wear athletic shoes – soft-soled referee shoes or hiking shoes or actual running shoes – then they will look more youthful. The contrary is true.

You can be nervous when the referee starts the game but you must get rid of all the nerves and enjoy a great stadium and great pitch.

Coaches will do what they can but it doesn’t necessarily bother me. You are an international referee for a reason. If things like that are going to ruffle your feathers, don’t bother doing the job.

I used to be in a street fight at least twice a week, so locking me in a cage with somebody, with a set of rules and a referee to jump in if something get ugly, and a time limit, like, it don’t scare me.

So, a flop is basically tricking the referee into thinking somebody fouled you or maybe elbowed you in the face.

Taya has never beaten me in a fair fight one-on-one. Taya has always needed a stipulation or a special guest referee or something that puts the odds in her favor.

When you see an article it always has ‘disgraced NBA referee.’ It’s embarrassing and it’s never going to be okay. Unfortunately, I have to move forward and just make things different moving forward.

When someone oversteps the mark, there’s a referee.

We talked to the referees before the game; there’s always new situations to adjust, for the refs and for us as well. Even on the ice, it’s good for players to talk and interact with the referee.

You can’t put your arm around the referee! That’s ungentlemanly conduct.

You should always play 100 per cent, and you shouldn’t expect every decision from the referee.

Yeah definitely, I have to be brave. There are some bad tackles that we don’t like. But it’s not my job to look at that, it’s the referee’s job, he has to see what is going on. All I try to do is keep going.

The objective of a referee is not to get mentioned. I tell a lot of young referees that not being mentioned is king. If you can achieve that, that then it has been a pretty good game.

When United play at home, they get some advantage that other teams don’t get. I think when you go to United, Madrid, Barcelona, or Milan, when the referees referee these kind of games, it’s always difficult to go against these kind of teams.

You know, I’m a father. I’m a brother. I’m a son. And I’m a grandfather. So many times I have to be the intermediary, the person to referee and help solve disputes and to protect and to guide.

Jake Roberts started in Mid-South as a referee. We’re pretty close, and we come from the same school of thought when it comes to the psychology of wrestling.

We have to be careful with time-wasting, the behaviour of the players. There are a lot now who are complaining during the game. We have to think about only the captain able to talk to the referee, not everybody, because we’re losing a lot of time.

When government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.

It is always hard when the referee is against you.

The referee will now keep track of the time on the field and the shootouts have finally been banned.

My job is to hit somebody until the referee pulls me off.

Sporting behaviour means fair behaviour. This is the player’s task, not the referee’s.

When I got into UFC, it was an unbelievable feeling. When I got inside the cage, ‘Big’ John McCarthy – a guy who I was watching back when Royce Gracie was fighting – was the referee. I was able to earn a quick submission win. It was perfect.

I love what I’m doing. It’s my life. When it’s time to go, I’ll probably be fighting to get out of the casket. I’ll be yelling at the priest instead of a referee.

Football is more disputed in England than it is in Italy. Every match is a very hard match because the referee doesn’t blow his whistle as much as in Italy, and every team plays against each other like it is a final.

We score and stop. We don’t celebrate because it has to go to VAR. What are the supporters doing? The passion goes. I think they have to have a little more flexibility, such as with the offside rule. If it’s not clear and obvious, maintain the decision of the referee.

There’s nothing like making a decision when you’re a football referee. It really pushes you to be very clear – to make that decision and to sell it to everybody who’s there. You believe in it, but you have to make sure other people believe in it, too.

Just like it would be wrong to have a player referee a game, it’s wrong for election officials to participate in federal campaigns.

Trouble is, we call politics a game, but it isn’t one. There is no referee, and the teams make up the rules as they go along. You can’t cry foul or offside in politics. Almost anything goes.

When I hurt Norton, I got scared. I looked to the referee. But in the same sense, you’re a fighter: you gotta have the killer instinct.

When you ask to go to some other country and fight their local best guy, and you know the judges are going to be his friend and the referee is going to be his coach, the head of commission guys is probably going to be his relative or something like that, and you’re asked to do that for 100 Euros. Nobody wants to do that.

I think a letter is more ceremonial than anything. Personally, I think it’s just a reason to go talk to the referee.

In any other context, ‘icing’ is a great and exciting word: The proverbial icing on the cake, for instance, is a bonus – a wonderful thing on top of another wonderful thing. But in hockey, icing merely results in the referee’s raising his right hand, as if swearing an oath to the deity of downtime.

No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.

You can’t applaud a referee.

I think, always, the form of the players is a decisive factor. And a game-plan and the referee. He can influence the game. And in a derby, a cool head is also very important.

One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.

The referee is going to be the most important person in the ring tonight besides the fighters.

I allow people to create, but I’m also marshalling everybody, which is difficult for my creativity, as I’m like a referee. Everybody else is kicking a ball. It is very messy. From the mess, though, you refine what is there.

I was in a unique position to predict the outcome of NBA games. Some of my picks included games I had been assigned to referee.

Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.