Kavanagh replaces Clattenburg on Select Group
Chris Kavanagh, who got his Premier League debut as a referee last season in the game between West Brom and Southampton at the Hawthorns, is the only addition to the Select Group of referees for the 2017/18 season.
Kavanagh, from Manchester, has spent just three years in the Football League, getting his first game in August 2014 when he was in charge of the League Two game between Burton and Dagenham & Redbridge, a game that featured ex-Clarets on both sides with Alex MacDonald in the Burton side and George Porter introduced as a substitute for Dagenham & Redbridge.
By November of the same year he’d progressed to the Championship with a game between Sheffield Wednesday and Wigan at Hillsborough and last season was on the original Select Group 2 who refereed mainly in the Championship.
He’s refereed Burnley on just one occasion; he was in charge in January 2016 when we beat Brentford 3-1 at Griffin Park on a night when there were no cards.
With Mark Clattenburg having retired from English football, Kavanagh steps up to replace him in the group which will referee this season’s Premier League games and we can expect to see the appointments for the first weekend announced by Monday afternoon.
Kavanagh’s place in Select Group 2 having been taken by Darren England from Barnsley who has been a Football League referee for just two years and has not, to date, refereed a Burnley game.
Mike Dean is the longest serving Select Group referee. He’s now going into his 17th season and was one of the original 20 set up with the formation of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) in 2001 alongside such as Phil Dowd, David Elleray and Uriah Rennie.
New man Kavanagh will referee this afternoon’s game against Hannover 96.
Below is the current list of Select Group referees ahead of the 2017/18 season showing the year of their appointments.
2001: Mike Dean (Merseyside)
2005: Martin Atkinson (West Yorkshire)
2005: Andre Marriner (West Midlands)
2006: Lee Mason (Lancashire)
2007: Lee Probert (Wiltshire)
2008: Mike Jones (Cheshire)
2009: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire)
2010: Michael Oliver (Northumberland)
2010: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire)
2011: Jon Moss (West Yorkshire)
2011: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire)
2013: Roger East (Wiltshire)
2013: Bobby Madley (West Yorkshire)
2013: Craig Pawson (South Yorkshire)
2015: Graham Scott (Oxfordshire)
2016: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire)
2016: Paul Tierney (Lancashire)
2017: Chris Kavanagh (Manchester)
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