Revealed: Premier league refs surcharged for errors

Premier League referees are paying for their mistakes with yearly performance-related bonuses of up to £50,000 taking a hit with each error according to Sportsmail

Referees are marked for every performance depending on whether their decisions are deemed right or wrong and these scores are tallied by their bosses in a ‘merit table’.

A typical Premier League referee earns a basic salary of around £110,000 to £120,000 but bonuses can boost that figure to £160,000 or £170,000.

Bonuses are largely determined by the ‘merit table’ produced by referees’ body PGMOL at the end of each season – in which the top-ranked referee will receive the highest bonus and the bottom-ranked official gets the lowest.

A source said: ‘That is why a referee visiting his pitch side monitor is going to be downhearted.

‘If he’s made a mistake, which clearly his VAR thinks he has if he’s telling him to go review his original decision, then he’s going to be marked down for it afterwards.’

The same source explained how, in Europe, a typical mark for a referee might be 8.4 out of 10. If he makes a major mistake that mark dips to 7.9.

The Premier League do it differently, with every decision – as minor as a throw-in or as major as a penalty – marked by evaluators

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The process adds to the pressure referees feel to make correct calls. The final score is fed into the PGMOL’s merit table which ranks referees from first to last.

It  has also been brought to the fore that, during a recent half-term review with PGMOL bosses, referees raised concerns about feeling pressure to overturn their original decisions when told to visit the pitchside monitor by VAR.