Ísak Ernir Kristinsson (born 22 July 1993) is an Icelandic

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French language, French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. FIBA defines the rules of basketball, specifies the Basketball equipment ...

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 title ...

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 basketball competition organized by the National Basketball Association (NBA). NBA teams come together to try out different summer rosters instead of their regula ...

. 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

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 former basketball player and a former member of the Icelandic women's national basketball team. During her career, she 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 In basketball, a technical foul (colloquially known as a "T" or a "tech") is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a ...

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 The Icelandic Basketball Association (''Icelandic:Körfuknattleikssamband Íslands - KKÍ'') is the national governing body of basketball in Iceland and is a member of the continental association FIBA Europe and the global International Basketbal ...

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 (; ), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest surviving parliament in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at (' thing fields' or 'assembly fields'), about east of what la ...

as a member of the Independence Party. 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 Keflavík (pronounced , meaning ''Driftwood Bay'') is a town in the Reykjanes region in southwest Iceland. It is included in the municipality of Reykjanesbær whose population as of 2016 is 15,129. In 1995, Keflavík merged with nearby Njar ...

. 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 profile
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ruv.is
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kristinsson, Isak Ernir 1993 births Living people Isak Ernir Kristinsson Isak Ernir Kristinsson