Officials and referees

Officials are your umpire/scoring path: invite one, they claim their profile, accept the assignment on their /me home, and score the match on the same full fixture console you use — no separate scorer role, no device link to mint. Officials are an org-wide pool, managed from Directory → Officials — the same roster is shared across every competition and division, so you add and invite an official once and pick them on any schedule. A division's schedule → Officials tab stays where you assign them to fixtures: auto-assign, manual pick, phased sourcing from results, and blackout warnings. Inviting an official, their home view, accepting and declining, blackout dates, and scoring are available on all plans.

Assigning officials is free on every plan. Add a second official to the same fixture — a referee and a line judge, say — on Community, Event Pass, Pro or Pro Plus alike; there's no per-fixture cap. Multiple roles on one official (see below) is likewise available on every plan — it's about how many hats one person wears, not how many people cover a match. The one part that stays Pro Plus is automatic (AI) officials assignment.

Add and invite an official

In Directory → Officials, Add official creates a roster entry; pick their role(s) as chips (referee, umpire, judge, scorer and more — or add a custom one). Multiple roles on one official are available on every plan — pick as many chips as apply and they stack. Next to any official, choose Invite and enter their email. They get a claim link — the same claim system players use, so the rules match: only an account signed in with the invited address can accept, invites last 14 days, and re-inviting quietly withdraws the previous link. Once accepted the official shows a Linked chip; an outstanding invite shows Invited. Invite all with email re-invites everyone who has an address but no link yet.

Edit roles or remove an official

On any roster row, Edit roles opens the same chip picker to change an existing official's roles, and Delete removes them after an explicit confirmation. Deleting removes the official from this organisation only — their roster entry, their fixture assignments and their availability dates here. It never touches their account: a linked official keeps their login, their /me home, any player profiles, and their officiating profiles with other organisations. If they should come back later, just add and invite them again.

Assigning on a division's schedule

The schedule's Officials tab shows a compact roster strip (with a link back to the directory to manage it) plus the assignment tools: propose/apply an auto-assignment, phase officials in from results, or pick manually per fixture. Every official in the org-wide pool is available to every division — there's no separate roster per division. Automatic officials assignment (propose/apply) is a Pro Plus feature — picking officials manually works on every plan, including a second official per fixture and multiple roles per person. To staff a whole timetable from one instruction, see AI Officials.

What the official sees

A linked official gets an Officiating section on their personal home (/me, same login as any player profile they hold):

• My assignments — each fixture with competition, court and time (shown in the venue's timezone and their own).
• Accept / Decline — declining asks for an optional reason. Once accepted, an assignment can't be self-declined; they'll need to ask you. A decline can be re-accepted up until matchday.
• Can't make these dates — blackout dates that apply across every organisation they officiate for.
• Score this match — once accepted, this opens the same full fixture console you score from — same login, no separate device link to mint. It also shows up on their My matches page, alongside anything a scorer seat has assigned them. A pending or declined assignment has no scoring door: only an accepted one opens the console.

Officiating for more than one organisation

Officials often work for several organisations, and each invite is its own one-claim-per-org link. If an invite is waiting on your login's email — whether or not you've linked an officiating profile yet — /me shows a Pending invites card: "<Org> set up an officiating profile for <Name>", with an Accept button right there. No token, no link to hunt down in your inbox: your signed-in email is what proves it's for you, exactly like clicking the emailed link would. Accepting one invite never touches the others — link as many organisations as you officiate for, whenever their invites arrive.

Responses on your console

Each assignment chip on the Officials tab carries the response: ✓ accepted, · pending, ✗ declined (hover for the reason). A decline is a flag for you to re-pick manually — nothing is reassigned automatically, and your locked assignments never move.

Existing assignments from before this feature count as accepted — nothing lights up red on upgrade day.

Blackout dates when assigning

If an official marked a date unavailable, the assign picker suffixes their name with unavailable and assigned chips show a ⚠ on that date. It's a warning, not a block — you can still assign them if you've agreed it.

Booked-elsewhere warnings

An official who officiates for more than one organisation can end up double-booked without either organiser knowing — blackout dates only cover time the official marked off themselves, not time another organisation already assigned them. If a claimed official has a match around the same time in a different organisation, the assign picker suffixes their name with booked elsewhere · <time> and an assigned chip shows the same badge on that fixture. Like the blackout warning, this is informational only — nothing is blocked or auto-reassigned. Privacy note: the warning shows only a time. It never reveals which organisation, competition or match the official is booked with — your console can't see another organisation's roster, schedule or name, only that a clash exists.

Conflict signals on the schedule board and fixture page

Two more places surface an official's response, both organiser-only:

• Schedule board conflict badges — a fixture with a declined assignment shows umpire declined; one where the assigned official has a blackout date on that day shows umpire unavailable. Both sit alongside the board's other warnings (double-bookings, venue clashes) as non-blocking flags — nothing is auto-reassigned, exactly like the Officials tab's own response chips.
• Assigned-officials strip on the fixture page — opening a fixture you can edit shows a small chip per assigned official (accepted/pending/declined), with the decline reason on hover. It's the fastest way to check who's covering a specific match without leaving the score console.

Emails officials receive

• You've been assigned — sent when you assign them to new fixtures (manually or by applying an auto-proposal), with an accept/decline link.
• Assignment changed — sent when a fixture they're assigned to moves time, court or venue.

Both go to the official's email; nothing is sent for re-applying an unchanged assignment.