Alan Kelly (born 9 April 1975) is a former FIFA Referee from the Republic of Ireland. He has officiated primarily in the Munster Senior League, the

League of Ireland The League of Ireland is a national association football Sports league, league consisting of professional clubs in the Republic of Ireland and Derry, Derry City in Northern Ireland. It is governed by the Football Association of Ireland. It was ...

and

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

and was first appointed to the FIFA list in 2002. He has been regarded as Ireland's top referee for the last number of years.

Career

Kelly took up refereeing in 1994 and joined the Cork Branch of the Irish Soccer Referees Society (ISRS). He refereed in local leagues including the Munster Senior League. He joined the

Referees Panel in 1999 while participating in the first FAI Referee's School of Excellence. Since then he has refereed at over 350 matches in the

League of Ireland Premier Division The League of Ireland Men's Premier Division (), also known as the SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in the Republic of Ireland and the highest level of the Republic of I ...

. In 2000, he was selected to referee the

League of Ireland Cup The League of Ireland Cup, also referred to in Ireland as the 'League Cup', was an annual knockout competition in men's football in Ireland. It was contested by League of Ireland clubs and invited clubs from the lower levels of the Irish footb ...

final between Derry City and

Limerick City Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

. He refereed the 2003 FAI Cup final when Longford Town beat St Patrick's Athletic in

Lansdowne Road Lansdowne Road Stadium (, ) was a stadium in Dublin owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) that was primarily used for rugby union and association football matches. The stadium was demolished in 2007 to make way for the Aviva Stadium on ...

. He also refereed the 2009 FAI Cup Final between Sporting Fingal and

Sligo Rovers Sligo Rovers Football Club is an Irish professional association football, football club playing in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland. The club is based in Sligo in the west of Ireland. The club was founded in 1928 and have been in ...

Tallaght Stadium Tallaght Stadium () is an List of association football stadiums in the Republic of Ireland, association football stadium in Ireland based in Tallaght, South Dublin. The club Shamrock Rovers F.C., Shamrock Rovers originally announced details of ...

. He refereed the 2011 Setanta Sports Cup final in Tallaght Stadium between

Shamrock Rovers Shamrock Rovers Football Club is an Irish professional Association football, football club based in Tallaght, South Dublin. The club's senior team competes in the League of Ireland Premier Division and it is List of football clubs by competit ...

and

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

. Kelly has been ranked as Ireland's Number 1 referee for several years and was the inaugural winner of the Players Football Association of Ireland's (PFAI) Referee of the Year Award in 2006. He has gone on to win the award on five further occasions since. His final appearance as a referee in the

was on 25 October 2013, when his former club Cork City FC defeated St Patricks Athletic 4-2 in Turners Cross. It was also the final game of the 2013 League of Ireland season. In 2016, Kelly was named Major League Soccer's Referee of the Year and was selected to referee the

MLS Cup MLS Cup is the annual championship game of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the culmination of the MLS Playoffs. The game is held in November or December and pits the winner of the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Western Confere ...

between Toronto FC and Seattle Sounders FC. The game ended 0-0 a.e.t, with Seattle defeating Toronto 5-4 in Kicks from the Mark (KFTM). In December 2018, Kelly refereed his second MLS Cup Final at the Mercedez Benz Arena in Atlanta where Atlanta United defeated Portland Timbers 2-0 in front of 73,000 spectators. During his time in MLS, Kelly has been voted the Major League Soccer Referee of the Year in 2015, 2016 and 2018. The award is voted for by Players, Coaches and Media Personnel.

International

Kelly was appointed to the FIFA list in 2002 and he refereed his first

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

match, which was a 1st Round qualifier between Tirana and Dinamo Tbilisi in June 2003. This was the first of almost 100 appointments he has taken around Europe. Kelly refereed the U-17 European Championship semi final between France v Spain in Denmark in 2002. In 2006 in Tallinn, Estonia, Kelly refereed his first World Cup Qualifier when the Estonian National Team took on Luxembourg in a Qualification match for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Since then Kelly has refereed three 2010 World Cup Qualifiers and 2014 World Cup Qualifier. Kelly's first taste of group stage European football came in 2005 when he took charge of the UEFA Cup Group Stage match between Shakhtar Donetsk and PAOK FC in Ukraine. Kelly has been a regular appointee to Europa League Group Stage games and has refereed in the Round of 32 in the competition on 5 occasions. In the Champions League, Kelly has refereed four Group Stage games, his first in 2010 in Cluj Napoca where FC Cluj of Romania took on FC Basel of Switzerland and again in 2011 when he refereed two matches, the first in Leverkusen, Germany where local side Bayer Leverkusen took on FC Genk of Belgium and then in Madrid, Spain when Real Madrid played Dinamo Zagreb. His final Champions League game came at the Allianz Arena in Munich where Bayern defeated Viktoria Plzen in 2013. He has also been appointed to referee a number of high-profile friendly international matches, most recently in Paris, in 2009 between

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and in 2011 when France took on Croatia in the

Stade de France Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the List of football stadiums in France, largest stadium i ...

, Paris. On 26 March 2019 Kelly was selected to be a

Video Assistant Referee The video assistant referee (VAR) is a Assistant referee (association football), match official in association football who assists the referee by reviewing decisions using video footage and providing advice to the referee based on those revi ...

for the

2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 22nd edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 a ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Kelly was later appointed to be the VAR for the final of the tournament, during which Ismail Elfath was the referee and Corey Parker and Kyle Atkins were the assistant referees.

Personal life

Kelly was born in Cork, Ireland, and played schoolboy football for Avondale United and Ringmahon Rangers, before progressing to represent his boyhood club, Cork City FC. He is married with three children Eva, (14) Aaron, (11) and Quinn (5) Kelly comes from a family of referees with his grandfather Tim Kelly having officiated in the League of Ireland and his father Pat being a former FIFA Referee who also refereed two FAI Cup Finals (1987 & 1996). His brother Graham is also a current League of Ireland Referee.

Card statistics

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Alan 1975 births Living people Republic of Ireland association football referees Association footballers from Cork (city) Major League Soccer referees North American Soccer League (2011–2017) referees UEFA Champions League referees UEFA Europa League referees Republic of Ireland men's association footballers Cork City F.C. players Men's association football players not categorized by position