The future for sport officiating research: an expert statement

Tom Webb; David J. Hancock; Matthew Weston; Stacy Warner; Werner Helsen; Clare MacMahon; Noel Brick; Roy Samuel; Jacob Tingle

doi:10.1080/23750472.2025.2468711

The future for sport officiating research: an expert statement

Tom Webb, David J. Hancock, Matthew Weston, Stacy Warner, Werner Helsen, Clare MacMahon, Noel Brick, Roy Samuel, Jacob Tingle

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

30 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Research, coverage, and understanding in sport officiating related scholarly activity have increased markedly in the last decade. Sport officials (referees, judges, umpires) have been historically underrepresented in the sport management, psychology, and physiology literature, but this collection of experts provides avenues for collaboration and exploration that can contribute to understanding systems, individuals, and initiate real-world changes for sporting organisations, policy makers, and officials themselves. Focused and organised around the key research areas and priorities of physiology, decision making, psychology, mental health, management, and training and development, this statement offers detail on the development of the research and associated literature and provides proposals for future scholarship linked to each of the key research areas.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-10
Number of pages	10
Journal	Managing Sport and Leisure
Volume	(In-Press)
Early online date	25 Feb 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/23750472.2025.2468711
Publication status	Published - 25 Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Sport officials
match officials
referees
research
consensus

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1080/23750472.2025.2468711

Webb 2025VORAccepted author manuscript, 927 KB

Cite this

@article{e42594c3fd8942c4bad2e6573908dee6,

title = "The future for sport officiating research: an expert statement",

abstract = "Research, coverage, and understanding in sport officiating related scholarly activity have increased markedly in the last decade. Sport officials (referees, judges, umpires) have been historically underrepresented in the sport management, psychology, and physiology literature, but this collection of experts provides avenues for collaboration and exploration that can contribute to understanding systems, individuals, and initiate real-world changes for sporting organisations, policy makers, and officials themselves. Focused and organised around the key research areas and priorities of physiology, decision making, psychology, mental health, management, and training and development, this statement offers detail on the development of the research and associated literature and provides proposals for future scholarship linked to each of the key research areas.",

keywords = "Sport officials, match officials, referees, research, consensus",

author = "Tom Webb and Hancock, \{David J.\} and Matthew Weston and Stacy Warner and Werner Helsen and Clare MacMahon and Noel Brick and Roy Samuel and Jacob Tingle",

note = "This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor \& Francis Group.",

year = "2025",

month = feb,

day = "25",

doi = "10.1080/23750472.2025.2468711",

language = "English",

volume = "(In-Press)",

pages = "1--10",

journal = "Managing Sport and Leisure",

issn = "2375-0472",

publisher = "Taylor and Francis",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - The future for sport officiating research

T2 - an expert statement

AU - Webb, Tom

AU - Hancock, David J.

AU - Weston, Matthew

AU - Warner, Stacy

AU - Helsen, Werner

AU - MacMahon, Clare

AU - Brick, Noel

AU - Samuel, Roy

AU - Tingle, Jacob

N1 - This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2025/2/25

Y1 - 2025/2/25

N2 - Research, coverage, and understanding in sport officiating related scholarly activity have increased markedly in the last decade. Sport officials (referees, judges, umpires) have been historically underrepresented in the sport management, psychology, and physiology literature, but this collection of experts provides avenues for collaboration and exploration that can contribute to understanding systems, individuals, and initiate real-world changes for sporting organisations, policy makers, and officials themselves. Focused and organised around the key research areas and priorities of physiology, decision making, psychology, mental health, management, and training and development, this statement offers detail on the development of the research and associated literature and provides proposals for future scholarship linked to each of the key research areas.

AB - Research, coverage, and understanding in sport officiating related scholarly activity have increased markedly in the last decade. Sport officials (referees, judges, umpires) have been historically underrepresented in the sport management, psychology, and physiology literature, but this collection of experts provides avenues for collaboration and exploration that can contribute to understanding systems, individuals, and initiate real-world changes for sporting organisations, policy makers, and officials themselves. Focused and organised around the key research areas and priorities of physiology, decision making, psychology, mental health, management, and training and development, this statement offers detail on the development of the research and associated literature and provides proposals for future scholarship linked to each of the key research areas.

KW - Sport officials

KW - match officials

KW - referees

KW - research

KW - consensus

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85219188006

U2 - 10.1080/23750472.2025.2468711

DO - 10.1080/23750472.2025.2468711

M3 - Article

SN - 2375-0472

VL - (In-Press)

SP - 1

EP - 10

JO - Managing Sport and Leisure

JF - Managing Sport and Leisure

ER -

The future for sport officiating research: an expert statement

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this