Who is Sunny Singh Gill, the latest Premier League referee?

Referee Sunny Singh Gill will take charge of Crystal Palace v Luton on Saturday 9th March 2024. It’s a landmark moment as he will become the first British South Asian to referee a match in the top flight of English football.

This follows a trend of referees being picked from a wider group in 2024. Normally referees only get to referee in the Premier League if they are in the ‘select group’ after gaining promotion from lower levels. This year, the PGMOL have been bringing up referees from lower levels without this requirement, allowing for a more diverse set of officials.

This is not the first time the Singh Gill family has been in the limelight…

Sunny’s father Jarnail remains the only English league football referee to wear a turban. He is a workhorse of a referee, in the middle for 150 matches until 2010.

Bhupinder, Sunny’s brother became the first Sikh-Punjabi Premier League assistant referee when he was assistant for the Southampton and Nottingham Forest game in January 2023.

The family are conscious of their role to inspire the next generation of referees from underrepresented groups.

Sunny told the EFL: “Football has always run in the family. Me and my brother grew up loving the game and like most young kids, we just wanted to play.

"But in our household, it was a bit different because when we were going to primary school, we knew our dad was going out to referee on a weekend.

"There were times he was a fourth official in the Premier League and our friends would say they saw him on Match of the Day!”

"It's been a lot of hard work training away from the pitch, improving in every department with the help of the PGMOL and my coaches,”.

"I now want to set more goals and fulfil my dream of becoming the first South Asian to referee in the Premier League." 

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