In his romantic times footballnothing seemed out of place. The teams were amateur and survived financially on meager income from game tickets. Football players treated sports as a hobby, did not expect to earn a living and were content with a wallet. Agents rose in the hierarchy of each team by criteria other than pockets, sponsors (sort of) were neighborhood grocers who offered sandwiches and orange juice, referees were amateurs, as were footballers – they took the whistle to make it their hobby.

Over time, everything began to change. High-level football has become professional and teams have become giants due to inflated revenues. Footballers live exclusively by football and the best of them in a few football years easily provide a future even for their grandchildren. Management – owners without a large financial surface, they can not stand and keep the team. The sponsors are now huge multinational corporations who are sowing millions in order to grow thanks to the glamor that football offers them. The only thing that stood still on this living canvas of football were the referees. For many decades they remained amateurs, and this was a huge typo …

It was really strange that victories, successes, titles that open money cannulas in a completely professional environment were determined by amateur judges. People who weren’t paid to play a very, very important role in distributing millions, deciding who gets the lion’s share and who gets the crumbs of bad luck. For many years, the world of football has changed at all levels, except refereeing. And it was really strange for an amateur to play such a key role in the game of money and power.

Over the years, the scene began to change. Judges have started to get paid, and in the last few years they have been paid very well. In some countries, refereeing became professional, while in others it remained amateur, it was only in theory. Referees are paid per game, and depending on the division or competition, their salary is much higher than the average salary of other workers.

The truth is that even in today’s era, when the “remuneration” of judges has skyrocketed, their overall remuneration remains very low compared to what they judge. In the eyes of many, a fee of 2,000 euros, for example, seems overwhelming for a “work” of 1.5 hours. In reality, however, his own decision may determine the flow of millions of euros, while we must not forget that even with this fee, the referee remains far from the lowest paid in a high-level professional match, although he can influence the effect much more than themselves Main characters!

Particularly indicative of the pay of referees in today’s top-level professional football is the Spanish Marca’s report on their annual earnings in the six major European leagues: Spanish, English, German, Italian, French and Portuguese. According to this, the revenue champions are the Spanish referees, who have been professionals since the summer of 2020 and receive a fixed salary for properly preparing for matches, no matter how much they end up officiating. This salary, the same for everyone, subsequently increases depending on the whistling matches.

The annual fees of Spanish judges are almost twice as high as those of English judges, and average about 250,000 euros per year, that is, 12,500 euros per month. This amount includes his salary and the games he plays in the league, for which the first referee’s fee is €4,200 and VAR €2,100 per match. On average, they serve about 20 La Liga matches a year, and VAR another 10.

The annual fee of English judges, respectively, is about 110,000, German 125,000, French 120,000 and Italian 140,000. In Portugal, 21 professional judges receive only 2,500 euros per month. According to the same publication, Spaniard Antonio Mateu Laot, who officiated the final of the Greek Cup between Panathinaikos and PAOK, collected the most money of all European referees for 2022. Because he has competed in European competitions and World Cups so many times, last year he raised €335,000, a huge amount compared to the average worker, but far less than what a Spanish national team player earns in a year without restrictions. For the stars, let’s not talk about it better…

In Greece, where refereeing is essentially semi-professional, the income of referees is satisfactory by our standards, but much less than their counterparts in the top 6 leagues. Their fees are indicative:

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