Alan Gordon Snoddy (born 29 March 1955) is a retired

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

football referee, known for having refereed two matches in the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

: one in

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

and one in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

. At the

1986 World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-team format. Colombia had ...

Snoddy was appointed to referee the game between

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 t ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

in Guadalajara which ended 3–1 to Morocco. In the

1990 World Cup The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time (the first being ...

Snoddy refereed the game between Colombia and

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

which ended 1–1 at the

San Siro Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy, which is the home of A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. It has a seating capacity of 80,018, making it one of the largest stadiums i ...

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 ...

. Snoddy served as Referee Development Officer for the

Irish Football Association The Irish Football Association (IFA) is the governing body for association football in Northern Ireland. It organised the Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became the Northern Ireland national football team. ...

a position which he left in 2014 although he still works as a Referee Observer for both the

(IFA) and

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

. He is also a member of the UEFA Referee Convention Panel and is widely used in assisting countries develop their refereeing structures. He is a Senior Course Leader at the UEFA Referee Centre of Excellence coaching young promising referees. He is also a FIFA Referee Technical Instructor conducting technical seminars regularly. He worked for 2.5 years as the President of the Cyprus FA Referee Committee, and in February 2020 finished a spell of 16 months as a Referee Consultant to the Latvia FF. He has vast experience in refereeing, observing/assessing, instructing, mentoring & coaching all levels of match officials, and is very much in demand for seminars and development projects. Snoddy was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the

2020 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours for 2020 are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded ...

for services to association football.

Personal life

Snoddy was one of four sons of the art historian Theo Snoddy and his wife Anna (Betty). He married wife Elaine on the 3rd of July 1976, and has three children, Philip, Graham and Victoria.

References

External links

* * * 1955 births Sportspeople from Belfast FIFA World Cup referees 1990 FIFA World Cup referees Living people 1986 FIFA World Cup referees Association football referees from Northern Ireland Members of the Order of the British Empire {{NorthernIreland-footy-bio-stub