Referee Blom stopped quietly: ‘The healing just hurt every day’

Only five referees have refereed more games in the Premier League than Kevin Blom. The 50-year-old Alphen resident managed 373 matches at the highest level of Dutch football and also managed more than a hundred international matches. If someone of that caliber stopped, it would usually be discussed. However, due to circumstances, Blom quietly left Dutch professional football.

He has not said goodbye to football: Blom is now VAR manager at the Belgian Football Association. And recently he was in Pijnacker at a meeting in the third region between DSVP and KMD.

That match was the end of a turbulent period for the former head referee, as he had not been seen on a football field at an official match in the past three years. This was due to several medical injuries. Back injury, problems with his stomach and intestines. Long Covid in particular kept the referee aside for a long time.

In the summer of 2023 it seemed that he was able to prepare for a season of professional football again. He mentioned a practice match for Sparta in preparation and then said that he would have to train for a few more months before he could show himself in full stadiums again. That turned out differently, he explains. “There are many conditions for refereeing in professional football. You have to be ideal if you want to referee games at the highest level,” said Blom to Radio West.

“For example, you have to be able to do a certain sprint forty times. I got 25, I climbed to thirty and then I fell to 25, and then I led 35 times. Only, I didn’t I got to that forty… In my opinion, you have to do that forty, to stay in my words, you can do it while you are whistling.”

In addition, Blom’s recovery process is taking longer than expected. “When you’re twenty or 25, sometimes you have pain when you get up. I just got to the age where the recovery was just painful every day. It took an hour until an hour and a half before I could walk normally again. That’s just very strange.”

All that physical misery made Blom doubt his future as an active football referee. It is January 2024 and just then the Belgian Football Association comes and asks him if he wants to work as a VAR manager. He liked that.

For someone who has been whistling almost all his life and has officiated a match in a stadium almost every week since 2004, the decision to stop is difficult for good Despite his excellent work in Belgium, there is still a desire to bring Ajax, ADO or Feyenoord games to a successful conclusion.

Last June, on the eve of the new season, the decision was finally made. “Then I thought: yes, that’s fine. I’ve had a great career and now I’m saying goodbye to refereeing in professional football. FC Groningen – So RKC was my last match in 2021.”

Blom therefore quietly retires as a referee in professional football. For the referee Alphen there are no major newspaper interviews, no talk show schedules and no applause after his final whistle.

“I sat down with the KNVB to find a good time to end everything satisfactorily,” he explains. “We have good discussions and of course there are financial consequences. As soon as that is fully resolved, we will also communicate this properly.”

Now that his career as an active referee is over, this also affects his income. “At the KNVB they say it’s a soft landing,” he explains. “I have been able to earn a lot as a referee, but now try to bring that into everyday life. So we are now talking about career compensation.”