Ísak Ernir Kristinsson (born 22 July 1993) is an Icelandic
FIBA referee
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...
and a politician.
Basketball
Ísak Ernir started refereeing in the
Icelandic national leagues at the age of sixteen and soon established himself as one of the top referees in the country. In 2017 he was selected to referee in the
NBA Summer League
The NBA Summer League, also known as the Las Vegas Summer League, is an off-season competition organized by the National Basketball Association. NBA teams come together to try out different summer rosters instead of their regular season line-ups ...
. On 24 January 2018, he ejected a fan from a game between
ÍR and
Njarðvík's after the fan had leaned over him from the sidelines and called him a racist.
In August 2019, Ísak Ernir was named an official
FIBA referee.
On 16 October 2019, Ísak was involved in a controversy with
KR player
Unnur Tara Jónsdóttir
Unnur Tara Jónsdóttir (born 18 May 1989) is an Icelandic basketball player and a former member of the Icelandic women's national basketball team. During her career, she has won the Icelandic championship three times and was named the 2010 ...
, who is a practicing medical doctor outside of basketball, after she requested permission to enter the court during a stoppage to attend to a teammate who had been suffered a serious leg injury after a hard landing moments before. Ísak denied her the permission and gave her a
technical foul after she indicated that she would then ask one of the other referees at the game for permission instead. After the incident caused an uproar with fans, the
Icelandic Basketball Association Referee Committee issued a statement where it stated that Ísak admitted that it had been a mistake on his behalf to deny Unnur permission to attend to her injured teammate and that the Committee agreed with that assessment.
Politics
In 2016, Ísak Ernir ran for
Alþingi
The Alþingi (''general meeting'' in Icelandic, , anglicised as ' or ') is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is one of the oldest surviving parliaments in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at ("thing fields" or "assembly ...
as a member of the
Independence Party
Independence Party may refer to:
Active parties Outside United States
* Independence Party (Egypt)
* Estonian Independence Party
* Independence Party (Finland)
* Independence Party (Iceland)
* Independence Party (Mauritius)
* Independence Part ...
. In July 2018 he was appointed by
Bjarni Benediktsson, the
Financial Minister of Iceland and leader of the Independence Party, as chairman of Kadeco, a state owned redevelopment company that was created in 2006 to oversee the sales of buildings that belonged to the former
US Naval Air Station in
Keflavík.
In 2019, it was revealed that Ísak was dating Bjarni's daughter.
Personal life
Ísak Ernir is the son of long time basketball referee Kristinn Óskarsson. In 2020, he had his first child with Margrét Bjarnadóttir, the daughter of
Bjarni Benediktsson.
References
External links
2016 Alþingi election profilea
ruv.is
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kristinsson, Isak Ernir
1993 births
Living people
Isak Ernir Kristinsson
Isak Ernir Kristinsson