This piece first appeared on The Offside Line on 17th May 2026

The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) have announced sweeping changes to their Match Official National Panel and pathway as it seeks to improve the experience and quality of match officials in charge of rugby fixtures across the country.

The overhaul was announced during an online presentation to match officials on Thursday 4^th June and follows a long, and occasionally fractious, period of consultation with the Scottish Rugby Referees Association (SRRA), the refereeing societies and match officials.

The primary changes include reducing the number of referees in the National Panel (the cohort which officiate national level fixtures) from over 60 to 20, reinstating and heavily investing in the previously shuttered Match Official Academy for young officials who are deemed to have the potential to officiate at higher levels, and the creation of a clearer framework for National Panel selection and match allocations.

In their case for change, the SRU highlighted several factors and outcomes with the existing set-up that were causing significant issues for all the involved parties, most notably the unsustainably high number of match officials on the National Panel.

Furthermore, there were concerns with selection and appointment transparency, and an inconsistent understanding of the pathway for progression.

In recent years, there were up to 65 match officials on the National Panel who lacked the required resources, particularly in terms of the number of match official coaches.

“The size of the National Panel was leading to diluted support and inconsistent performance outcomes,” explained Craig McCann, senior match official development manager at the SRU. “You can imagine the number of coaches that it takes to service 65 referees and then you’ve got an inconsistency of provision across those volunteer coaches.”

“If you want to improve, you need to be coached, you need to have some sort of support around you. So that’s what drove the change,” McCann added.

The 20 officials on the new National Panel will be joined by a Head of Coaching (former international referee JP Doyle), and a further 10 Assistant Referees and five coaches who are to be named soon, in preparation for the 2026-27 season.

The SRU have proposed that the 20 referees will work in groups of four, each with a dedicated coach, allowing for more regular feedback opportunities.

The relaunched Match Official Academy is to be led by Andrew Macpherson, a former professional referee and currently High Performance Match Official Manager within the SRU. The academy is intended to provide an environment and support network that gives the selected officials the best opportunity to reach the High Performance Panel, the top level of referees in Scotland which includes the three full-time referees, Hollie Davidson, Sam Grove-White and Mike Adamson.

The academy will feature six officials whose “readiness is being accelerated for high performance as they’ve been identified with potential,” McCann says. “Now, that’s not to say that they’ll get there next season or maybe even the season after, but it’s all that sort of timeline about when people are required [to move up].”

The changes have also affected match official allocations, with the word “transparency” repeatedly at the forefront of the communication from the SRU.

Previously, the match officials on the National Panel were allocated by the SRU to all national level fixtures, from the Premiership to National 4 in the men’s leagues, the Women’s Premiership, Inter-city Reserve leagues, and a number of youth leagues including the Open Conference.

At the same time, the six refereeing societies across Scotland (West of Scotland, Edinburgh, Borders, Midlands, Aberdeen, and Highlands) had the responsibility of allocating referees within their respective regional leagues, and the remaining youth and midweek games.

With the reduced numbers on the National Panel, and the now increased numbers of referees back within societies, the allocation process will have to start anew.

Officials from the National Panel and the Match Official Academy will be assigned fixtures by the SRU as before, starting from the highest games available, expected to be at Premiership level, depending on the availability of the High Performance group.

These officials will then be allocated in a downward fashion, primarily focusing on the men’s and women’s Premiership and National 1 in the men’s league structure.

A new National League allocations group has been created to allocate match officials at the levels immediately below the panel and academy.

This group, composed of a chair from the SRU, a representative from each of the Caledonia, East and West regions, and a reviewer, will have responsibility for allocations within any remaining National 1 games, National 2, 3 and 4 fixtures, as well as possibly the new women’s National League, although this was not mentioned during the release.

This is the most crucial and potentially the most difficult bridge for the SRU to navigate. Their hope is that this wave of allocations will be filled by those officials who were previously on the National Panel but have now returned to their respective societies or officials who were ascending within their society.

It remains to be seen what the feeling is amongst those referees. In anticipation of a level of concern, the SRU created a series of meeting opportunities, both virtual and in-person, for referees to discuss their thoughts, situation and needs.

The hope for the SRU will be that few, if any, existing referees will choose to exit the vocation after these changes, but the reality is that there will be a number of overlooked officials who will be unhappy with what has unfolded.

A review of the existing set-up showed that the issues went beyond just an oversubscribed National Panel. McCann highlighted that an, “inconsistent understanding of the pathway among officials aspiring to progress,” was identified as a significant obstacle among match officials.

To address concerns about the pathway and progression, a more transparent National Panel selection and exit process has been created, which allows for better understanding of selections and progression through the Match Official Pathway.

Prior to this overhaul, the National Panel was formed of referees who had been nominated by their respective societies on the basis that they were capable of refereeing at a level beyond the regional leagues.

This system of open nominations led to the National Panel becoming swollen in terms of numbers. To attempt to address this, a Transition Panel was created to act as a precursor to the National Panel where officials would be assessed for their suitability. But as McCann conceded: “What ended up happening was a massive majority just got accepted and we weren’t having enough difficult conversations.”

Given the need for “regular referee movement” between the different groups to occur as McCann says, a clear answer was needed.

This is where the new system comes in. Out goes the Transition Panel and in comes a framework which identifies the areas where match officials will be assessed in regard to movement in and out of the National Panel. This includes their current ability and previous game catalogue, their connection to the game and its flow, their effort on and off the field, and their ability or potential to referee in the Premiership.

McCann hopes that the more defined framework will aid those match officials looking to progress through the pathway, as well helping the SRU in identifying referees in the National Panel who need support.

“We’ll be able to identify somebody that’s struggling and put in a support process,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, then we can say: ‘Look, we’ve done X, Y and Z, but it’s not quite working out. We’ve got somebody here that is doing X, Y and Z. They’re going to come up and take your spot.’ And that’s the way any pathway should work. It’s not pressure, it’s selection tension.”

Ed Crick, who was president of the Scottish Rugby Referees Association during the consultation but has since stood down, feels that the moves will be for the best for many referees across the country, describing the new changes as “a vast improvement on where we were last year.”

He feels that the refocused panel and a clearer pathway will improve the experience for all referees, regardless of level.

“I think that by making both the panel and the academy more selective, more rigorously coached and assessed, and sharing the same data, the opportunities for demonstrably able referees to get into that 20 [the National Panel] will be increased,” he said.

At this time, there seems to be a level of cohesion and understanding across the affected stakeholders that change was absolutely needed and that the proposals appear to address much of the anxieties and issues, but the proof of effectiveness will be in how the new system plays out over the next year, and beyond.

For Crick, he sees two questions that need to be answered.

“Did they get the initial selection [of the panel and academy] broadly correct?

“And will the collaborative, rigorous and accountable allocations into the tier below the national panel deliver the results we want for the game?”

These changes come off the back of a highly contentious initial set of proposals in 2025, that ended in the SRU pausing their original plans for changes in the Match Official Pathway. The changes announced last week appear to address many of the concerns that were raised at that time by the SRRA. 

After years of inefficiencies and concerns for match officials across Scotland, the SRU will hope that their significant changes to the National Panel and the associated pathways, frameworks and protocols will bring about positive experiences in the short-term for today’s match officials and have long-term benefits for the wider Scottish Rugby community.