Former referee Howard Webb will return to the Premier League as chief refereeing officer for the PGMOL, it has been confirmed.
Webb, who officiated nearly 300 top-flight games during his career as one of England's leading referees, is currently the general manager of the Professional Referee Organisation in the United States and Canada and will make his return to the Premier League upon the expiration of his current contract.
The 51-year-old has overseen some of the biggest games in football during his career and refereed the World Cup, FA Cup and Champions League finals in 2010 but is now set to return to England, where he could potentially end up having a huge impact on the fortunes of both Liverpool and Everton.
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Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) managing director Mike Riley has welcomed Webb's reintroduction into the English game as he "hands over the baton to Webb" later this season.
However, Webb himself hopes his new role will "positively impact the game".
"I am looking forward to returning to England and starting this new challenge when I have fulfilled my contract with PRO – it's an excellent opportunity for me," said Webb.
"I am very proud of what has been achieved during my tenure here and I aim to have a similar impact with PGMOL, using the Elite Referee Development Plan as a real driving force.
"I know I will be inheriting a strong foundation laid by a lot of good work over a number of years. It is about maintaining these standards and then enhancing them to grow and positively impact the game in England."
Webb's return date will be confirmed in due course.
"We’ve worked hard, I think, particularly with the advent of VAR, which is a whole new aspect to the game that people were not familiar with at first,” he told the PA news agency.
"Obviously it’s a new initiative and it’s not as new now but I think we’ve done pretty well here in terms of being able to give insights into the way that that works.
"Of course working in the US where video replays are a staple of all the major sports has made that task a little bit easier, I guess.
"But, still, I think there’s ways that we can give extra insight to the fans in England, the stakeholders in England, as to the way that the system is working.
"I’m a strong advocate for VAR. I think it’s been a positive introduction to the game to try to eliminate some clear, match-changing areas that I, as an active official, used to really hate when they happened in my games.
"It wasn’t intentional that you would make an error but sometimes you didn’t have all the information in the moment to make the best decision and now we’ve got a tool that helps us do that.
"I’m a big, big advocate of VAR and I think we just need to make sure that we ensure that people go with us on that VAR journey so that they can see the true value also."
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