10 min• 28.09.2026
Referees in an amateur league: where to find them, what to pay, and who enters the results
By Dawid Pątko
Referees are one of the biggest cost items in an amateur league's budget, second only to venue hire. There's no shortage of guides written for referees themselves; guides for the organiser who has to hire and pay them are much harder to find. Before the season starts, you need to settle six things: whether you need a referee at all, how many, where to find them, what to pay, how the result reaches the table, and what to do when a referee doesn't turn up.
Each of these choices carries its own cost and consequence, and settling them before the season works out cheaper than patching them one at a time once the competition is under way. If you're still building the infrastructure for your league, FLM System can also help with the fixture list and your league's page.
Does an amateur league need referees?
Self-officiating works fine in a friendly league where the stakes are low and the teams have known each other for years – captains settle disputed calls between themselves and nobody questions the result. That stops working the moment the first serious dispute comes up, most often over a penalty or a red-card foul in a match that decides promotion or the title.
The threshold at which it's worth paying for a referee is usually the point where the league has something real at stake: prize money, prestige, or competition for promotion to a higher division. Below that threshold, the cost of a referee is hard to justify to the teams; above it, going without one costs more in disputes than the referee's fee ever would.
How much does a referee earn, and how much should you pay?
These are two different questions, even though they often look like one in a search box. The first is asked by someone considering becoming a referee, checking whether it's worth their time. The second is asked by the organiser, working out the league's budget for the season.
The referee's perspective
There's no single national rate for a referee taking charge of amateur, corporate or five-a-side matches. It's an informal market with no fixed price list, where the fee is settled in conversation between organiser and referee – usually per match, or for a whole evening's block of matches. The amount depends on the city, the format (an indoor venue pays differently from an outdoor pitch), and whether the referee holds a federation qualification or is taking charge of matches as someone with playing experience earning a bit on the side.
The organiser's perspective
Don't look for one fixed figure. Work out refereeing like any other operating cost of the league: the fee per match, times the number of matches per round, times the number of rounds in the season, with the result divided by the number of teams. Indoors, a referee takes charge of more matches in one evening because each one runs shorter, so the fee per fixture tends to be lower than on an outdoor pitch. You can't guess the going rate from behind a desk. Get quotes from two or three candidates in your area before you sign a standing arrangement with anyone.
One referee, or a referee with assistants?
In eleven-a-side football, official competitions are run by a referee supported by two assistant referees, under Law 6 of the IFAB Laws of the Game. In an amateur league, one referee is almost always enough, especially in six-a-side and seven-a-side formats. A smaller pitch and the frequent absence of an offside rule cut down on the number of situations that need a second pair of eyes on the line.
A second referee (or assistant) starts to pay off in large, high-stakes eleven-a-side competitions, where the pressure of the match and the pace of play genuinely make it hard for one person to keep up with the whole pitch. In a six-a-side or seven-a-side league, the cost of a second referee is rarely justified by the number of disputes it settles.
Where do you find referees?
Four sources work best in practice, each with a different mix of cost, quality and availability.
- The regional referees' association – the highest formal quality and the best knowledge of the rules, but also the highest fee and less flexibility on timing, since associations prioritise fixtures in higher divisions.
- Referees still in training, looking for practice – a lower fee and a genuine appetite for logging match hours, but less experience defusing conflict on the pitch.
- Former players from the same league – they know the realities of small-sided football and the specific teams, which cuts both ways: an advantage (they understand the context) and a drawback (the risk of a bias complaint when they know the players).
- Sports science students – the lowest cost and good weekend availability, at the cost of less experience taking sole charge of a contentious match.
A licensed referee, someone from the league, or self-officiating?
Three models, three different trade-offs. A licensed referee gives the highest credibility to decisions and the fewest disputed results, at the cost of the highest fee. Someone from the league or a student costs less and knows the specifics of the competition, but their decisions get questioned more often, because they lack the formal authority of a licence.
Self-officiating is the cheapest of the three models, but also the most expensive in disputes: it's a solution that works right up until a match comes along where the stakes are high for both teams. In practice, choosing a model means deciding how much cost you want to shift from the referee's fee onto the risk of conflict in the changing room.
How much do referees cost across a season?
In an eight-team league playing four matches a round, every week, over twenty rounds, that adds up to eighty paid fixtures. Every extra round adds four more, and the cost rises in a straight line – which is why you work out this line item for the whole season up front, before you set the entry fee, rather than round by round as you go.
If one referee covers every match of an evening in a single block, the fee per fixture usually drops, so scheduling a round in one place and time reduces this cost without negotiating the rate itself. You'll find the full breakdown of a season's costs, referees included, in the piece on the amateur league budget.
What do you do when a referee doesn't turn up?
A backup plan needs to be ready before the season starts, not improvised on a Sunday morning after a call from a referee who's come down ill. The most common solution: the organiser or a coordinator present at the venue takes charge of the match, with both teams agreeing to it before kick-off.
This is a different situation from a walkover, and the two shouldn't be confused. A missing referee doesn't mean a missing team on the pitch, so the match usually goes ahead, just with someone standing in, rather than being automatically postponed or recorded as a technical loss. We cover the rules around walkovers themselves and team withdrawals in the piece on walkovers in an amateur league.
Who enters the match result?
The match result is entered by the referee, or by whoever the organiser has designated as coordinator, logging into the same referee account the league administrator set up beforehand. In the FLM System referee app, it's one and the same feature, whether the phone is in the hands of the person running the match on the pitch or a coordinator watching from the sidelines. Nobody sets up their own account – access is decided by the league administrator.
Once the result is entered, the table works itself out, because the organiser configures the order of tie-breaking criteria once, at the start of the season. In a league without a system, that same chain looks different. The referee tells the captain, the captain posts the result in the group chat, and the organiser only gets round to copying it into a spreadsheet that evening, hoping nobody got a number wrong along the way.
What should the rulebook say about referees?
The league rulebook should briefly answer four questions about refereeing: who provides the referee for a match, who covers the cost of their fee, who has the right to enter the result into the system, and what the deadline is for a team to lodge a protest against a referee's decision. We cover these four points, along with the rest of the rulebook, in the piece on the amateur league rulebook.
FAQ
How much does a football referee earn?
There's no fixed price list in amateur, corporate or five-a-side competitions. Pay is settled in conversation with the organiser – per match or for the whole evening – and depends on the city, the format and experience. A referee with a federation qualification earns more than someone taking charge of matches without one. What matters to the referee isn't really the fee per match, but how many matches they take charge of in one evening, so a league with four matches in a block can be a better booking for them than a league with just one.
How much should you pay a referee in an amateur league?
Get quotes from two or three referees in your area, then multiply the fee per match by the number of matches per round and the number of rounds. Only that total, divided by the number of teams, tells you how much refereeing adds to the entry fee. A budget based on a single figure picked up from a fellow organiser most often falls apart when your league plays more matches per round than theirs does.
Does an amateur league need a licensed referee?
No – plenty of amateur, corporate and five-a-side leagues run without a licensed referee, using former players, students or self-officiating instead. A licensed referee gives decisions higher credibility and fewer disputed results, but in amateur competition, the choice between one and a cheaper option is entirely up to the organiser.
Where do you find a referee for a match?
The quickest route is through referees still in training and sports science students, since both groups are actively looking for practice and are usually free on the weekend slots amateur leagues play in. Start by asking your regional referees' association for contacts among people on their courses – even if the association itself won't staff your matches, it'll usually point you to someone looking for hours. If it turns out after a season that decisions are being questioned too often, move to a licensed referee from the association, despite the higher fee.
Who enters the match result?
Only an entry made from the account the league administrator set up counts. A result the captain posts in the group chat doesn't reach the table until someone with access enters it into the system. Having one source instead of several versions circulating between teams also saves arguments over who reported the goal count first.
What do you do when a referee doesn't turn up?
The match usually goes ahead. It's taken charge of by the organiser or a coordinator present at the venue, with both captains' agreement before kick-off, rather than an automatic postponement. Write into the rulebook that this agreement has to be given before play starts – agreement given after the fact, once the result is already known, tends to get disputed later. If absences happen more than once a season, arrange a standby person you can call on.