Rune Pedersen (born May 19, 1963) 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 ...

, representing

SK Sprint-Jeløy Sportsklubben Sprint-Jeløy is a Norwegian football club from Jeløya in Moss. The club was founded in 1926 when both ''Jeløy IF'' and ''SK Sprint'' was formed. The two clubs merged into Sportsklubben Sprint-Jeløy on 11 October 1940. The women ...

. He was regarded as the best match official in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

during the 1990s, and won the

Kniksen award The Kniksen Award ( no, Kniksenprisen), established in 1990, honors the best players in the Norwegian football premiership. The award is named after the legendary Norwegian football player Roald Jensen, nicknamed "Kniksen". Categories Catego ...

for "Referee of the year" 10 times between 1990 and 2000. Only

Roy Helge Olsen Roy Helge Olsen (born 19 January 1965) is a Norwegian football referee from Trondheim, representing Flekkerøy IL from Kristiansand. He started as a referee in 1979 and was a referee in FIFA from 1992 to 2002. Olsen officiated in 2002 World C ...

stood in the way of Pedersen winning the award 10 times in a row, with his win in 1993. In the first leg of the 2000–01

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

semi-finals between Alavés and

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

, Pedersen awarded four penalties (three for Alavés and one for Kaiserslautern) as Alavés won 5–1.
/ref> Rune Pedersen also won the Kniksen's honour award in 1998. After retiring Pedersen was the Head of Referees for the

Football Association of Norway The Norwegian Football Federation ( nb, Norges Fotballforbund, nn, Noregs Fotballforbund; NFF) is the governing body of football in Norway. It was formed in 1902 and organises the men's and women's national teams, as well as the league systems f ...

until 2014.

References

Profile
1963 births Living people People from Moss, Norway Norwegian football referees FIFA World Cup referees 1998 FIFA World Cup referees Kniksen Award winners {{Norway-footy-bio-stub