New chief refereeing officer Howard Webb hoping to entice former players into officiating and improve VAR use

Former Premier League referee Howard Webb has said he is keen to see ex-players take up roles as officials in future.

Webb, who took charge of matches in the English top flight from 2003 to 2014, has been appointed the first chief refereeing officer of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited with the brief of improving standards in the game.

The 51-year-old has admitted it has been tough to encourage former players to make the switch, but hopes to encourage former stars who have played the game to consider careers in refereeing.

“We need to look at how we can entice people in,” he told the BBC. “We’ve always struggled to get ex-players involved,”

“But I am sure somebody out there will want to be a trailblazer.

“Somebody who’s played in the Football League – I don’t expect players who have played at the very highest level who have got other opportunities to come into [refereeing] – but somebody that has played a decent career, that’s got good knowledge of the game, maybe late 20s, suffering with an injury or whatever it might be that means they can’t play as regularly.

“I think there’s an opportunity for someone to really blaze a trail and we would welcome them wholeheartedly with the skills they have got from that playing career provided they have got the other skills they need to be successful.”

Webb is also committed to making sure that the use of VAR is appropriately implemented in the league and also prevent too much interference during games.

“A lot of guidance and coaching I will be giving will be around not overthinking it,” he said.

“We don’t want the VARs to be looking too hard. We want them just to look for those errors that jump off the screen at you.”

He added: “We are looking at whatever way we can to pull that curtain back, to show the world the processes that go into making decisions, the rationale for decisions being taken.

“People might not always agree with the final outcome but if they understand how we have got there, there is a much greater level of acceptance.”