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Who Selects the Referees? Why Assignments Are Set Two Weeks Ahead

Who Selects the Referees?
Who Selects the Referees?

Referees become a topic of conversation once the match ends.

But how those referees came to be standing there is rarely discussed.

The people who select them, assign them, and evaluate them are all different.

3-line summary
1. Authority over referee assignments was transferred to the secretariat this year.
2. Assignments, previously made 3–5 days ahead, are now made two weeks ahead.
3. Referees also move up and down between leagues.

It Starts With Grades

Football referees are divided into grades: Grade 3, Grade 2, Grade 1, and international referee.

The starting point is Grade 3. You do not need to have been a football player; you can obtain it by completing training offered by a city or provincial football association and passing written and practical exams. You begin with weekend youth matches.

What it takes to move up is time and number of matches.

To move from Grade 2 to Grade 1, a referee must have worked as a Grade 2 referee for at least two years and served as a referee or assistant referee in at least 50 official matches. They must also undergo a physical examination at a general hospital designated by the association and be found eligible, as well as complete continuing education.

Once they become Grade 1, they can officiate university, semi-professional, and professional matches. This is where they gain the qualification to blow the whistle in professional matches.

It is notable that fitness is included among the qualification requirements. That is only natural, since referees must run alongside players for 90 minutes, but it also means that regardless of officiating ability, those who fail the fitness test cannot make the list.

Who Decides Who Goes to Which Match?

Having the qualifications does not mean a referee gets assigned to matches. There is a separate process for deciding who goes to each match, and this is where a major change was made this year.

The Korea Football Association announced an improvement plan on February 23. Its core measure was transferring assignment authority from the Referee Committee to the secretariat’s Referee Operations Team. It took effect beginning with the K League’s February 28 opening.

The timing was also moved up. Assignments that had previously been decided 3–5 days before a match are now set two weeks before. However, the time at which the names of the officials are publicly disclosed remains two hours before kickoff.

In other words, the time for deciding and the time for notifying have been separated, and the design reflects competing demands. Referees need advance notice to prepare and travel. On the other hand, disclosing who will officiate early gives outside parties that much more time to make contact. The answer intended to satisfy both demands is to “decide early and announce late.”

The association also announced plans to develop an AI-based automatic assignment system and fully automate the process.

Referees Are Also Promoted and Relegated

Promotion and relegation do not apply only to teams.

The association decided to implement a full referee promotion-and-relegation system from K League 1 through K4 League. Based on evaluations, referees will move up one league or down one league the following season. The 2026 referee list was also determined based on individual ratings from the previous year and fitness tests.

The evaluation side was revised as well. The number of evaluators without referee backgrounds was increased from one to three, and match observation, which had been limited to league staff, was opened to club representatives. The association also plans to apply promotion and relegation to those evaluating referees, from K League evaluators to amateur evaluators.

Training was expanded as well. Online feedback training after every round was formalized, and training on mobile video review equipment was expanded. A plan was also announced to promote high-performing referees and accelerate their path to becoming international referees.

A “Monday Briefing” explaining major decisions was also newly created. It cannot change a decision, but it is intended to explain why the decision was made; without such a channel, all that remains is broadcast footage and speculation.

Baseball Takes a Different Path

KBO umpires are structured differently from football referees. They are full-time employees of the Korea Baseball Organization. After passing an open recruitment examination, they must spend around five years in the minor leagues before advancing to the major league. The mandatory retirement age is 60, and beginning with the season in which they turn 58, they officiate only minor-league games.

Its evaluation method is also structured around numbers. According to a Seoul Shinmun report, the KBO introduced a system in which it ranks umpires through performance evaluations after the season and demotes the lowest-ranked official to the Futures League. It consists of 40% human evaluation and 60% data evaluation, including measures such as strike-zone consistency.

Employment is stable, but evaluations are renewed every year. If football is managed through grades and assignments, baseball is managed through personnel administration.

Why This Is Being Discussed Now

On July 30, the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee held a hearing on the Korea Football Association. It addressed the broader operational issues raised within the association after the World Cup group-stage elimination, and referee administration was also included among the questions. After the hearing, the Referee Committee chair stepped down.

Changing people and changing procedures are different matters. Most of the mechanisms outlined above were already announced in February of this year, and they are still in their first season.

What I am watching most closely is the number of evaluators without referee backgrounds. Moving from one to three may not seem like a major change, but in a structure where referees are evaluated by former referees, this is where it is decided whether minority opinions can remain on the record.

It is easy to evaluate a referee based on a single decision. But once you know how that referee received that grade and through what procedure they were assigned to that match, you can direct your anger a little more precisely.

When next season’s list is released, look at who moved up and who moved down. That list will show whether the promotion-and-relegation system actually worked.

The basis for controversial decisions is summarized in the “Monday Briefing” posted by the Professional Football League on the official K League website and its YouTube channel. This is a better starting point than broadcast screenshots and community posts. The original text of the grading and assignment rules is publicly available in the Korea Football Association Referee Regulations PDF.

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