An in-depth review of decision-making by sports officials that goes beyond traditional and reductionist perspectives

Stuart Carrington
St Mary’s University, Twickenham, UK

As sports claim greater amounts of cultural capital, resulting in what Walsh and Giulianotti (2007) label as hyper-commodification and increased financial repercussions for success and failure, scrutiny regarding the performances of those involved has risen accordingly. The officials that oversee games are no exception. Historically, this population has been neglected in academic research. Ten years ago, only around 1% of research was dedicated to this group (MacMahon et al., 2015), however, over the last decade this has been addressed, with significant focus being afforded to referees and umpires, their challenges, and how they can be best supported (Hancock et al., 2021). The systematic review by Professor David Hancock and colleagues not only demonstrates the growth of research in this area (approximately 50% of research on sports officials has been published since 2010), but highlights areas of dominance (and bias) within these investigations. For instance, decision-making is the second most researched topic in this area (physiological aspects of performance is the first), while areas such as psychological skills training and communication development report less than 10% of research combined. Therefore, it may be assumed that this book is simply a review of the extant research on decision-making and, by proxy, one that reinforces its position as the most important aspect of officiating. This is not the case, and it is because this book offers so much more than an analysis on decision-making research is what makes it outstanding.

The importance and value of this book is two-fold. First, while it has a focus on decision-making, it also addresses the philosophical question of what constitutes good officiating and whether decision-making is the only metric of value in assessing performance. Second, in a landscape where little applied research has been done on how to develop officials, the book provides the reader with tangible frameworks that are buttressed with evidence to assist in their development.

Importantly, the book does not abandon the ‘ontological authority’ of the sports official, and each chapter includes comments from experienced individuals, whether they be practicing officials or those responsible for their development.

The philosophical question of decision-making and its importance is addressed early in the book. After an introduction that clearly outlines the authors’ position of a holistic and empirical approach to development, the first chapter outlines different categories of officials and tenets of good officiating; safety, accuracy, fairness, and entertainment (Russell et al., 2022). From this point, it is through this lens that decision-making should be viewed and so the reader is instantly made aware that traditional, reductionist approaches to decision-making (e.g., get into position, see event, react according to law) is simplistic at best and naïve at worst. It’s possible that the book could justify these aspects of effective decision-making further. For instance, readers may object to the ‘entertainment’ aspect (I receive this question a lot!) and whether this should be a factor in decision-making. An example that may be offered is the throw-in when officiating football. While the law states that the ball must be thrown in the exact place that it left the field of play, officials must calibrate accuracy and with adequacy; would calling it back a metre, while accurate, irritate players and spectators? Hence, decision-making is rarely binary. Rather, it can be assessed on a scale, with adequacy of decisions sometimes taking precedent over accurate ones (see Raab et al., 2021), and game context also being important.

Chapter two (placed in a section that includes ‘Understanding the demands of officials’) strengthens the importance of officials judging events using their ‘ontological authority’ couched in their epistemological privilege. In short, they are often best placed to make judgements (both physically and from experience, the latter quite a robust antecedent of good officiating performance). Of course, as the book points out, this is a dynamic landscape with the arrival of video assistant referees and other technological advancements, and so the second chapter addresses how best to develop officials in the use of these tools. Importantly, the book does not abandon the ‘ontological authority’ of the sports official, and each chapter includes comments from experienced individuals, whether they be practicing officials or those responsible for their development. The reader is then privy to how officiating practice looks at an applied level and is afforded the opportunity to see how the research translates to practice.

Part two, titled ‘Cognitive and mental foundations of decision-making for sports officials’, does a wonderful job of developing the holistic approach earlier advocated. In particular, it recognises that psychological aspects of officiating are not limited to coping (although this is also valuable), but in preparing the official for decision-making and developing psychological skills for practice. In the first chapter of this part, there are aspects of skill acquisition research, namely declarative and procedural knowledge, discussed that reflects both the importance of embracing evidence from other sport science related disciplines and the thoroughness of the authors. No stone has been left unturned in the production of this volume, with the remainder of this section including influences that may disrupt decision-making accuracy and how psychological skills can be applied to practice. It is in this final part that is becomes evident that little applied research has been conducted with sports officials, and how this population would benefit from increased intervention and investigation. Thus, this book is not only of value to officials and those invested in their development, but researchers too.

The final part, ‘Assessing, supporting, and training decision-making skills in sports officials’, contains four chapters that brings the previous sections to a distinctive point: what should be done to best support this population? The first of these chapters looks at assessment. As mentioned, there are a variety of ways that one can look at sports officiating, and the importance of context is stressed in this chapter. It is too reductionist to assess decisions as right or wrong. Rather, the use of checklists is discussed to evaluate decision making, using different and progressive criteria that officials can reflect upon. Again, these are discussed by experts in the field throughout. Importantly, the following chapter (‘Creating climates to support sports officiating decision-making skill development’) stresses the importance of the environment we create for officials but also stresses the pertinence of the individual and how personal reflection can be beneficial. The evidence discussed in this chapter is followed up with recommended frameworks to apply in the development of sports officials. This is incredibly valuable to practitioners and researchers alike, with models of practice lacking in this area. In particular, the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR; Kirk et al., 2015) is a sound suggestion that practitioners can utilise to develop officials in the future (the topic of the concluding chapter).

To surmise, this book provides the reader with an in-depth review of decision-making by sports officials that goes beyond traditional and reductionist perspectives of how best to develop those that oversee the sports we watch. By adopting a holistic perspective, the reader becomes more enlightened to the factors that can influence decision-making and, importantly, why decision-making should not, and cannot, be assessed in a binary fashion. Anyone interested in the development of this population should purchase this volume to obtain a better understanding of the challenges faced by officials and how we can best support them, from assessment to provision and review.

Copyright © Stuart Carrington 2025

References

Hancock, D. J., Bennett, S., Roaten, H., Chapman, K., & Stanley, C. (2021). An analysis of literature on sport officiating research. Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport, 92, 607-617.

Kirk, M. A., Kelley, C., Yankey, N., Birken, S. A., Abadie, B., & Damschroder, L. (2015). A systematic review of the use of the consolidated framework for implementation research. Implementation Science, 11, 1-13.

MacMahon, C., Mascarenhas, D., Plessner, H., Pizzera, A., Oudejans, R., & Raab, M. (2015). Sports officials and officiating: Science and practice. Routledge.

Raab, M., MacMahon, C., Avugos, S., & Bar-Eli, M. (2021). The referee’s challenge: A threshold process model for decision making in sport games. International Review of Sport & Exercise Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2020.1783696

Russell, S., Renshaw, I., & Davids, K. (2022). Sport arbitration as an emergent process in a complex system: Decision-making variability is a marker of expertise in national-level football referees. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 34, 539-563.

Walsh, A., & Giulianotti, R. (2007). Ethics, money and sport: This sporting mammon. Routledge.