Football Referee Quotes & Sayings

They were representative of the poorer type of clerk - the type which Woodbines its fingers to a brilliant orange; the type that screams insults at a football referee on Saturday afternoon. And yet to the close observer something more might be read on their faces: a greedy, hungry look, a shifty untrustworthy look - the look of those who are jealous of everyone better placed than themselves, but who are incapable of trying to better their own position except by the relative method of dragging back their more fortunate acquaintances; the look of little men dissatisfied not so much with their own littleness as with the bigness of other people. — Sapper

The referee was only five or seven yards away from that incident. — Peter Drury

Life was a damned muddle ... a football game with every one off-side and the referee gotten rid of - every one claiming the referee would have been on his side ... — F Scott Fitzgerald

One of the things that I noticed in war was how difficult it was for our soldiers, at first, to realize that there are no rules to war. Our men were raised in sports, where a referee runs a football game, or an umpire a baseball game, and so forth. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Referee Norlinger is outstanding in the sense that he stands out. — George Hamilton

I wanted to have a career in sports when I was young, but I had to give up the idea. I'm only six feet tall, so I couldn't play basketball. I'm only 190 pounds, so I couldn't play football, and I have 20/20 vision, so I couldn't be a referee. — Jay Leno

My wife runs the house much better than I could so I think she could be a linesman or a referee or even a football manager and that's the truth. — Ian Holloway

I was surprised we were playing in Manchester and have a referee from Greater Manchester. — Brendan Rodgers

That's referee Mike Reed's 50th booking of the season, which works out at an average of six a game. — Alan Parry

The Football Association have always acted more as a referee than a governor. And the FA, aware the Premier League provide players for the England team, have always had too gentle a hand on the tiller. The result is that the Premier League are the tigers in the English football jungle everybody's scared of. — Gordon Taylor

In the game of football, you least complain, shout, talk or blame your opponents or the referee continuously throughout the game just because of your opponents opposition, strength or antics to ensure that you lose focus and lose the game; winning the game is your true aim. Such is life! You must do all you ought to do to score your goals notwithstanding the oppositions and how life will play the game of life with you! Be a goal getter! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

You are pushed to behave differently here, you don't really have a choice. If you cheat you have no chance of being admired. Even your own supporters will dislike you. So what do you do? Well, the way is not to be stupid, but not to cheat either. If there is a foul, you have to fall. I call it 'helping the referee to make a decision'. That's not cheating. — Jose Mourinho

A difficult decision for the referee's assistant. I wouldn't beat him up over it. — Kenny Cunningham

The game's finest mistakes were perpetrated by Djimi Traore, who interrupted his general competence with one air shot, one slice over his own head and a foul so telegraphed that even the lenient referee seemed to have his card out a couple of seconds before contact was made, to show the first yellow of the game. — Phil Cornwell