Who are the Premier League referees for 2021/22?

There are 22 appointed referees for the 2021/22 Premier League season. 

Premier League referees are selected by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the body responsible for match officials in English professional football.

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Any referee selected in Select Group 1 can referee matches in the Premier League. 

Martin Atkinson

Yorkshireman Martin Atkinson began refereeing at just 16 years of age. He first refereed in the Premier League in 2005 and has since taken charge of the 2011 FA Cup final, the 2014 League Cup final and went to multiple international tournaments. 

Prior to the start of the 2021/22 season, Atkinson had refereed 433 matches, dishing out 1,479 cards. He is a regular for top-six clashes and was appointed referee for the Tottenham vs Liverpool game last season, which ended 3-1 to Liverpool. 

Stuart Attwell

Nuneaton-born Stuart Attwell has been refereeing in the Football League since 2007. Attwell was promoted to the Select Group of referees for the 2008/09 season, making him eligible to referee in the Premier League - but was later dropped in 2012 and returned to Football League duty, with Professional Game Match Officials Limited general manager Mike Riley backing him to improve. 

Attwell returned to officiating in the Premier League in 2014 and was promoted once more to the Select Group Referees list in March 2016. 

Peter Bankes

Peter Bankes is a regular Premier League and Championship referee who was moved into Select Group 1 ahead of the 2019/20 campaign, after being promoted into the Select Group 2 three seasons before. 

Bankes generally doesn’t divide criticism as a referee, though was involved in a controversial VAR call between Southampton and Brighton last season, when he gave a penalty for a foul on Brighton player Solly March in which the contact had started outside the box.

John Brooks

Leicestershire-based John Brooks is one of the younger referees in the Premier League. He has been in Select Group 2 as a referee since 2018 and was in charge of the FA Vase Final at Wembley in the same year. 

Brooks was promoted to the Premier League for the start of the season. 

David Coote

David Coote started refereeing as a 16-year-old, in the Notts Alliance League, the Northern Counties East Football League, the Northern Premier League and the Conference North before being promoted to the Football League. 

Coote was promoted as a Football League referee in 2010 and was the video assistant referee in the Merseyside Derby who controversially recommended that Jordan Pickford remain on the field after injuring Virgil van Dijk after the linesman had blown for offside. 

Mike Dean

53-year-old Mike Dean is one of the most recognised and experienced referees in the Premier League, having officiated since 2000. He has reffed the Community Shield and the finals of the FA Cup, Football League Cup and FA Trophy.

Tranmere fan Dean was the first referee to make 100 sendings off in the Premier League and has a reputation for dishing out cards freely. Last season, Dean gave two controversial red cards in successive games - to Southampton’s Jan Bednarek and West Ham’s Tomas Soucek in successive games - and received death threats. Both cards were rescinded, with Dean asking not to officiate the following weekend. 

Darren England

The 2021/22 season is Doncaster-born referee Darren England’s second season in the top flight, following his promotion to the Select Group 1 last summer. 

England refereed the League Two Play-Off Final in 2017 between Blackpool and Exeter City and made 69 appearances as a Premier League assistant referee between 2012 and 2015.

Kevin Friend

50-year-old Kevin Friend has been refereeing in the Premier League since 2009. He managed the 2012 Community Shield between Chelsea and Manchester City, the 2013 League Cup final between Bradford City and Swansea City and the 2019 FA Cup final between Watford and Manchester City. 

Friend is a Leicester City fan. In 2016, he was controversially prevented from officiating a Premier League match between Stoke City and Tottenham Hotspur due to a conflict in the title race. 

Jarred Gillett

Jarred Gillett is the first Australian to referee in the Premier League. He is a new addition to the division, after becoming part of the Select Group 2 referee’s list for the 2019/20 season.

Gillett was one of the most high-profile officials in the A-League in his native Australia, officiating there from 2010 to 2019. 

Tony Harrington

A new addition to the Premier League, Tony Harrington has been a Select Group 2 referee since 2016 and has refereed nearly 200 EFL matches.

Harrington spent four years as an EFL assistant referee and four years as a National League referee before promotion to the EFL in 2012.

Simon Hooper

Simon Hooper was promoted to Select Group 2 in 2016 and took charge of the League One play-off final between Bradford City and Millwall at the end of the 2016/17 season. He went on to referee 42 games in all competitions in 2017/18.

Hooper was promoted to Select Group 1 alongside David Coote for the 2018/19 campaign, aged 36.

Rob Jones

Rob Jones was the fourth official for 15 top-flight fixtures in 2019/20, while officiating 26 Championship matches that season. He’s had a rapid rise up to the Premier League and was promoted to the Select Group 1 ahead of last season. 

Jones started officiating in the National League in 2014 before jumping up to the EFL two years later. 

Chris Kavanagh

Mancehster-born Chris Kavanagh was promoted to the Select Group of Referees in 2017, after five years of refereeing in the National League. He was the ref in charge of the  2021 Championship play-off final between Brentford and Swansea City last season.

Kavanagh was appointed to FIFA’s international referees list in 2019. 

Andy Madley

Huddersfield-born Andy Madley has been refereeing in the Premier League in 2018 and was added to the Select Group 1 in 2019. He had been working as a referee in Select Group 2 for three years prior. 

Madley has been an assistant referee on all three Football League Divisions and has refereed the 2013 League Two play-off final, the 2015 League One play-off final and the 2019 League One play-off final. 

Andre Marriner

Birmingham-based Andre Marriner is one of the most experienced referees in England, having refereed for FIFA between 2009 and 2017 and taken charge of the 2013 FA Cup final, in which Wigan Athletic beat Manchester City. 

Mariner first joined the Premier League in 2004, having officiated since 1992 in the Birmingham Amateur Football League and the Southern Football League. Infamously, Marriner was the referee who wrongly sent off Kieran Gibbs in 2014, following a deliberate handball actually committed by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Jon Moss

Born in Sunderland in 1970, Jon Moss qualified as a referee in 1988 and was a primary school teacher in Leeds, where he taught future Premier League star James Milner. Moss sent off Milner in 2019. 

Moss first refereed in the Premier League in 2010 and has been a regular fixture in the division ever since. Moss is also the owner of a vinyl record store, The Vinyl Whistle.  

Michael Oliver

Michael Oliver has been on the UEFA Elite Group of Referees since 2018 and was promoted to the Select Group in 2010, aged just 25. Oliver has reffed the 2013 League Cup final and took charge of the 2018 and 2021 FA Cup finals. 

As well refereeing at Euro 2020, Oliver made headlines in 2018 for sending off Gianluigi Buffon in late on in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final between Real Madrid and Juventus. 

Craig Pawson

Sheffield-born Craig Pawson has been refereeing since 1993 and regulating officiating in the Football League since 2012. He first refereed in the Premier League in March 2013, during a Swansea City win against Newcastle United. 

Pawson officiated the Championship playoff semi-final between Derby County and Leeds United in 2019 - following the Spygate affair earlier in the season - controversially awarding Derby a penalty in the second half, before reversing his decision on the advice of his assistant. Pawson was also responsible for David Luiz’s contentious red card for Arsenal last season against Wolves. 

Michael Salisbury

A new addition to the Premier League for the 2021/22 season, Michael Salisbury has been refereeing in local leagues in Preston since 2001. He was referee for the 2020 League Two play-off Final.

Salisbury has been a referee in the EFL since 2016 and was part of the Select Group as an assistant referee.

Graham Scott

Graham Scott of Oxford was promoted to the Select Group of Referees in 2015. He started officiating in 1997.

Scott was almost demoted by the PGMOL in 2017 after reffing just eight Premier League games all season but appealed against his demotion and retained his place. Scott has a  reputation for actively discouraging time-wasting, diving and dissent, which has garnered some praise from football pundits and journalists.

Anthony Taylor

Anthony Taylor was promoted to the list of Select Group Referees in 2010. The Manchester-born official took charge of the League Cup final at Wembley Stadium when Chelsea defeated Tottenham Hotspur 2-0; he was also the first man in over 100 years to referee a second FA Cup final, after taking on 2020 final, three years after his first. Both were between Arsenal and Chelsea. 

Taylor was the referee on the pitch during the match between Finland and Denmark at Euro 2020, in which Christian Eriksen collapsed. He was widely praised for his calm reaction to the situation, signalling for medical attention within seconds.

Paul Tierney

Wigan-born Paul Tierney has been refereeing in the Premier League since 2014 and was promoted to the FIFA list of Referees on 1 January 2018.

Tierney officiated the Championship play-off final between Aston Villa and Derby County and the 2021 League Cup Final between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.