Salary Premier League referee can be £100,000

What a difference: my match fee: £16,00 versus match fee of Premier League referee: £1.000. And that’s not it, they also get £65.000 (basic salary Premier League referee per year).

The Premier League referees belong to the Select Group of referees. The National Group – Football League referees – earn about 380 pounds and work on a freelance basis, says Daily Mail. The newspaper has calculated that the Football League refs will make £17,480 when they officiate 46 games per season.

In comparison, the average household income in the UK is £27,000, based on stats bythe Office for National Statistics.

I see such a salary gap also in The Netherlands. Referees on the national amateur list earn just 5 euro’s more than I get to buy lunch. Yes, they also get travel money as compensation as I do. But they sometimes move to the other side of the country (takes 3 hours sometimes, one-way). Then you’re away from home for payment of just over 25 euro’s.

The salary in German leagues is much higher on the second level. Referees of the second level will get 15.000 euro’s (now), 25.000 (next season) and 35.000 euro’s (in 2016/2017) as basic fee. For every game they ref another 2000 euro’s will be paid.

Read all about the German match fees.

How much money do you earn for refereeing your game?