The relationship between personality and performance of football referees

After coaches and athletes, referees are the third side of sporting events. If the judgment is done properly, the result of competition will be determined according to skill and tactical superiority; otherwise, other environmental factors may affect the result of competition. Personality is one of the distinctive aspects of every individual’s life. Personality characteristics predispose an individual to perform various actions in specific situations. Football is one of the most stressful jobs and it seems personality is one the most important factors in Judgment method of referees. This study examines the relationship between extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience and performance of referees. The research method used was correlation. All 61 premier League Soccer's Referees (the season 2012-2011) were selected as the study population. Due to the limitation of population, all subjects were considered as the sample. The NEO Personality Inventory (60 items and 5 scales) was used. For collecting the data, researcher visited Tehran’s referees in their training location; questionnaire was sent via e-mail to the referees in other cities. The SPSS software was used for data analysis. Results showed that there was significant relationship between personality dimensions and judgment methods. There was a positive relationship between flexibility and judgment quality. Also, the present study showed there was not significant relationship between neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and judgment quality.