Gavin Badger was an Australian

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

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 ...

in the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

. He controlled over 300 NRL matches.

Refereeing career

Badger grew up in

Redfern, New South Wales Redfern is an inner-city suburb of Sydney located 3 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. Strawberry Hills is a locality on the border with Surry Hills. The area ...

and is the only NRL full-time referee with an indigenous background. He made his NRL debut as a referee during a Brisbane vs South Sydney game at Suncorp Stadium in round 17 of 2004. In 2006 he controlled his first international match, a World Cup qualification match between

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

and

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

. Badger has also controlled

City vs Country Origin City vs Country Origin was an annual Australian rugby league football match that took place in New South Wales between City and Country representative sides. The City side represented the Sydney metropolitan area. While technically it was Sydne ...

matches in 2009 and 2014 and the

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

and

2011 All Stars match The 2011 All Stars Match was the second of the annual representative exhibition match played between the Indigenous All Stars and the NRL All Stars which was held on the 12 of February 2011 at the Gold Coast's Skilled Park. The game was won by ...

es. His wife, Kasey Badger, is also a rugby league referee. On 21 October 2012, the day of their second wedding anniversary, they jointly refereed an international match between Thailand and the Philippines. On 6 August 2017, Badger became the fifth referee to control 300 first grade matches in Australia, following

Bill Harrigan Bill Harrigan (born 24 May 1960 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league football referee, and former head of refereeing for the National Rugby League. Unusually for a sports official, in his long career he was accorded the ...

Col Pearce Colin Frederick Pearce (1917 – 10 June 2004) was an Australian rugby league referee. He is one of the most widely known and widely respected referees in the history of rugby league. Pearce, born in Newtown, New South Wales, was originally mor ...

Shayne Hayne Kevin John "Shayne" Hayne (born 31 October 1967 in Wellington, New South Wales,) is an Australian former rugby league referee. He officiated in the National Rugby League, City vs Country Origin, State of Origin series, All Stars Matches, the ...

and

Steve Clark ''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people * Steve ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Badger, Gavin Living people Sportsmen from New South Wales National Rugby League referees Australian rugby league referees Rugby league players from Sydney Australian indigenous rights activists Indigenous Australian sportspeople 1972 births