Philip Don (born 10 March 1952) is a former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

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 school headteacher from

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Don was originally from

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

but his teaching career took him south to

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

. He is counted amongst the top 100 referees of all time in a list maintained by the

International Federation of Football History and Statistics The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) is an organisation that chronicles the history and records of association football. It was founded in 1984 by Alfredo Pöge in Leipzig. The IFFHS was based in Abu Dhabi for so ...

(IFFHS).

Career

He became a

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

linesman in 1980 at the age of 28. In 1985, he missed out at the interview stage for a place on the referees list but was successful the following year. Very soon he showed his potential to be a leading referee and picked up a fair number of top division games. His progress was accelerated by

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

's decision to reduce its retirement age for referees to forty five. This provided new opportunities for a number of younger officials and Don was one of five promoted to the FIFA List in 1992. His appointment to that year's

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football ev ...

between

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

marked him out as a leader amongst the new crop of English international referees and he was to hold that status over the next few years. In a short time he made his mark on the international stage. When the original choice for the 1993-94 UEFA Champions League Final, Dutchman

John Blankenstein John Blankenstein (12 February 1949 in De Bilt – 25 August 2006 in The Hague) was a Dutch football referee and gay rights activist. He was notable for being one of the first homosexual athletes to come out in the Netherlands. Professional car ...

, had to withdraw, Don took charge of the game in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, even though he had little over two years experience at that level. In the match,

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

thrashed

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4–0. He officiated in two matches in the

1994 World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football, soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the countr ...

: the quarter-final between

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and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, and the first-round game between

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Don took charge of the 1995 League Cup Final but his career came to a premature end at the end of that season. He had to retire, five years early, as work commitments as a headteacher took priority.

In retirement

He moved into a referee assessing role and later became head of refereeing at

the Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the ...

towards the end of the 1990s. He favoured a hardline, "by the book" style of refereeing in the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

and ushered in the new Select List of professional referees in 2001. This though led to tensions, particularly with

David Elleray David Roland Elleray, (born 3 September 1954), is an English former football referee who officiated in the Football League, Premier League and for FIFA. As of September 2021 he held the position of Technical Director at the IFAB. During his ca ...

who preferred to maintain his teaching career at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

rather than turn professional. Other tensions appeared and he was later replaced by

Keith Hackett Keith Stuart Hackett (born 22 June 1944) is an English former football referee, who began refereeing in local leagues in the Sheffield, South Yorkshire area in 1960. He is counted amongst the top 100 referees of all time in a list maintained b ...

Life outside football

He is the father of world champion triathlete

Tim Don Timothy Philip Don (born 14 January 1978 in Isleworth, London) is a triathlete from the United Kingdom. Career Don is the son of former Premier League referee Philip Don. He competed in the London Youth Games where he represented Hounslow in th ...

.Philip and Tim Don
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', 20 July 2007.

References

Sources

Print

* Elleray, David (2004) The Man in the Middle, Time Warner. * Football League Handbooks 1980–1985. * Rothmans / Sky Sports Football Yearbooks, 1986 onwards.

External links

Philip Don Referee Statistics
at

soccerbase ''Racing Post'' is a British daily horse racing, greyhound racing and sports betting publisher which is published in print and digital formats. It is printed in tabloid format from Monday to Sunday. , it has an average daily circulation of 60 ...

.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Don, Philip 1952 births Sportspeople from Sheffield Living people English football referees UEFA Champions League referees FIFA World Cup referees 1994 FIFA World Cup referees Olympic football referees English Football League referees