Sports Referee / Official CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample works two sports across youth, county league and semi-professional levels, and also appoints and mentors. The leagues and clubs are described rather than named. Notice how the refereeing level, the games worked and the level of competition sit at the top.

Officiating is appointed, not interviewed in the usual sense. The appointments officer is filling a calendar and managing risk, and your CV has to answer both concerns.

• Registration and level. Which body you are registered with, your level, and whether it is current for this season. Rules and registration differ by sport and by county, so name yours exactly.
• Volume and level of games. Games a season, sports, and the highest level you have worked. An official who has refereed open-age county league matches is a different resource from one who has done Under-10 mini-soccer.
• Availability and travel. Evenings and weekends you can cover, how far you will travel, whether you can take midweek fixtures. Appointments officers build a season around this.
• Compliance. A DBS check and safeguarding training are required by most governing bodies for officials working with under-18s. If they are current, say so with the year, because an out-of-date one blocks your appointments.

“Give me your level, your games last season, your travel radius and your availability, and confirm your background check and safeguarding training are current. If someone also tells me they have never turned back an appointment, that person gets the tournament dates.”

Two or three lines: sports, level, games a season, registration and compliance.

Anyone can say they officiated games. What an appointments officer or a hiring manager wants to see is game management, reliability and self-improvement.

Officiating qualifications are sport-specific and set by each national governing body, and they change. Name exactly what you hold and check your own body's current requirements rather than assuming.

• Governing body registration. The FA (through your County FA) for football referees, the RFU and its referee societies for rugby union, Basketball England for basketball, the ECB for cricket umpires, and so on. State your level and that it is current for the season.
• County FA registration. Football referees in England register each season with their County FA, which runs training, observations and promotion through the refereeing levels.
• Referees' society or association membership. Many appointments and most mentoring come through a local referees' society or a league appointments secretary, so name yours; appointments officers recognise it immediately.
• Safeguarding training. Required by The FA and most governing bodies for anyone officiating under-18s, and refreshed on a set schedule.
• DBS check. Required for adult officials in most youth and school sport. Say the year it was last renewed.
• Concussion recognition training. Widely expected for officials at school and grassroots level, often based on the UK 'If in doubt, sit them out' guidelines or your governing body's own course.
• Fitness testing where your sport requires it, and any annual rules exam scores you are proud of.

Most officials do this part time and want it on the CV for a regular job. It is genuinely valuable experience if you translate it instead of just naming it.

1. 1Give it a proper entry with dates, not a line in hobbies. "Football Referee, County FA, Aug 2019 to present (seasonal)" reads as work, because it is.
2. 2Translate the skill. Officiating is decision-making under pressure, conflict de-escalation, applying written rules consistently and working in a small crew with clear roles.
3. 3Use the numbers you already have: games a season, crowd sizes, reports filed on deadline, assessment marks, officials mentored.
4. 4Emphasise the compliance side for jobs involving children, records or safety: DBS check, safeguarding training, concussion training, incident reporting.
5. 5If you appoint or train officials, present it as scheduling and people management: slots filled, retention of new officials, complaints resolved.
6. 6Keep it to three or four bullets. It is a strong supporting section, not the main story, unless you are applying inside sport.

There is a shortage of officials in almost every sport in the UK. If you are qualified, available and reliable, you will get games. The CV mostly needs to prove those three things.

• Take your sport's entry-level course (for football, the FA Referee Course through your County FA) and register for the sports you want to work.
• Join the local referees' society or association that covers your area. That is where appointments come from and where mentoring happens.
• Complete your DBS check and safeguarding training before you apply, so you can be appointed straight away.
• Say your availability in specific terms: weekday evenings for midweek fixtures, Saturdays and Sundays for open-age and youth football.
• Start where the volume is: youth and Sunday league games. Nobody starts at semi-professional level, and a season of 60 youth games builds real judgement.
• Ask for observer and mentor reports and record them. Written feedback and your rules test score are the only objective evidence a new official has.