Match officials
Match official equipment
Match officials carry their own kit, separate from either team. This guide covers what the referee, assistant referees and fourth official wear and carry, how they communicate with each other, and the technology that supports their decisions.
Who the match officials are
A football match is controlled by a team of officials, each with their own role and their own equipment.
The referee has overall charge of the match and the final say on every in-game decision. Two assistant referees run along the touchlines, helping with offside, ball-out-of-play decisions and incidents the referee may not have seen. A fourth official manages the technical area, the substitutions and the board showing added time. In competitions that use it, a video assistant referee and an assistant video assistant referee sit at a separate video operations room, reviewing major decisions.
All match officials need to be identifiable on the pitch, audible to each other in noisy stadiums, and equipped to time the match, manage the players, and signal their decisions. The equipment they carry has grown more sophisticated as the game has, but the core items have stayed much the same for a long time.
What the referee carries
A referee walks onto the pitch with a small set of items, each of which has a clear purpose during the match.
Whistle
The most important piece of refereeing equipment. The whistle is used to start and stop play, to signal fouls, and to confirm goals. Most referees carry at least one spare in case the first one fails. Different tones and lengths of whistle are sometimes used to communicate the seriousness of a decision.
Watch
A specialist referee's watch with two timers — one for the running match time and one for stoppage time. In competitions that use goal-line technology, the watch also receives an automatic signal when the ball crosses the goal line, vibrating on the referee's wrist within a second of the goal.
Yellow and red cards
Two coloured cards carried in a top pocket. The yellow card is shown for a caution; the red card is shown for a sending-off. Some grassroots or trial competitions use additional card colours for local rules, but standard football uses yellow and red cards.
Notebook or electronic device
Used to record cautions, sendings-off, goals, goal-scorers, the half-time score and any other notable incidents. Most referees still use a paper notebook, although electronic referee notebooks and smartwatches with note-taking functions are increasingly common.
Vanishing spray
A small can of foam used to mark the position of the ball and the defensive wall at a free kick. The foam sits on the grass for around a minute before disappearing on its own, which is enough time to stop the wall encroaching before the kick is taken.
Coin
A coin used for the toss before kick-off. The captain of the visiting team usually calls; the team that wins the toss chooses either which goal to attack in the first half or to take the kick-off. The coin is one of the refereeing items that has changed least across football history.
The assistant referees' flags
An assistant referee's flag is the most visible part of their equipment.
The flag is a single-coloured rectangle of bright fabric on a short pole. Assistant referees raise the flag straight up to signal offside or fouls, and angle it left or right to signal which team should take a throw-in, goal kick or corner. The colour is chosen to stand out against the pitch and the kits.
At the top of the game, the flag often includes a button on the handle. Pressing the button sends a vibration and a beep to the referee's watch, which tells them the assistant has flagged something even if they cannot see them. The electronic flag system means that decisions can be made just as quickly when the referee is looking the other way as when they are watching the assistant directly.
Officials' uniforms
The officials wear their own kit, which has to be distinguishable from both teams.
For most of football's history, referees wore black, which is where the phrase "the man in black" comes from. Modern referees and assistant referees wear shirts in a range of colours — green, yellow, red, blue and others — chosen for each match to avoid clashing with either team's kit. The shorts and socks usually match the shirt, and the whole kit is plain except for the competition badge on the chest and sometimes a small national or league flag on the sleeve.
Match officials' kits follow the same colour-clash rules as players' kits. The fourth official wears the same kit as the referee and assistants. Officials at every level usually carry an alternative kit in their bag in case of a late change to either team's choice.
Communication systems
Match officials at the top of the game use headsets and microphones to talk to each other during the match.
A headset system links the referee, the assistant referees and the fourth official, allowing them to share information without raising a flag or running over to each other. An assistant who sees a foul out of the referee's vision can describe it quickly; the fourth official can warn the referee about a substitution that is being prepared. Communication systems also link the on-field officials to the video assistant referee in competitions that use VAR.
At grassroots and amateur level, headsets are rare. Officials rely on hand signals, eye contact and the buzzer on the assistant referees' electronic flags. The principles are the same — the team of officials needs to act as one — but the equipment is much simpler.
Technology used by officials
Several technologies have been added to the officials' setup from the early 2010s onwards, each designed to help with a particular kind of decision.
Goal-line technology uses cameras placed around the goal, or a magnetic-field system in the ball and the goalposts, to confirm whether the whole ball has crossed the goal line. When the system detects a goal, it sends an automatic signal to the referee's watch within a second. Video assistant referee equipment is more substantial — a separate video operations room, multiple broadcast camera feeds, a pitchside review monitor, and a dedicated communication link to the on-field officials.
Semi-automated offside technology uses tracking data to help video match officials identify player positions and build the offside line. Some systems also use connected-ball data to help identify the moment of contact. The decision is still checked by the video assistant referee, but the technology can produce the offside line and the three-dimensional animation shown to spectators.
What to read next
Once the officials' equipment makes sense, the natural next step is to look at how it is used in practice — or at the technology side of training equipment.