Referee in focus: Roberto Rigante

Winner of the Referee of the Year Award at the Volleyball England Annual Awards 2023, he has helped to foster a collaborative environment within the refereeing community, and is well known for providing support to other referees and technical officials, guiding and inspiring young referees, who have this to say about him.

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“He is the reason why I started refereeing.” 

“Roberto has made a brilliant job as a referee and a great contribution to the sport in England.” 

“He is incredibly dedicated, to the point where he will referee a game last minute with only a few hours of notice.” 

“Roberto shows extensive knowledge and application of rules, combined with professionalism and impartiality.” 

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Volleyball England would like to share one of the many nominations received for Roberto which truly illustrates the amount of love, gratitude and respect the Volleyball community has for him.

Watch the video below, which captured Roberto’s thoughts after he won the Referee of the year Award at the Annual Awards 2023. 

You can also view one of the nominations received for Roberto ahead of the awards, which spells out his name.

R – Refereeing Commitment – This year alone Roberto has so far completed around 60 games across NVL, London and BUCS leagues (of which about 30 were NVL). That’s a whole lot of weekends and personal time invested in the sport and improving his refereeing skills and ability. In the time of a refereeing crisis, we need and rely on people as committed as Roberto is to our sport. When he is refereeing with experienced referees, we’ve seen him at fixtures and events being an excellent collaborator and extremely supportive of his peers. He has volleyball and its best interests at the heart of everything he does.  

O – Oh so much more – His commitment doesn’t stop there! Roberto has done many events in Kettering such as the U16 last 8 in 2022, while in 2023 he has attended U18 Last 8s and the U15 Last 8s in Feb this year. He’s a great example of an official keen to support Volleyball England’s major events strategy and was part of the volunteer team at the Cup finals in 2022 and has been invited to the 2023 ones as well this April.  

B – Birmingham 2022 – It was Our Time to Shine and Roberto was one of our dedicated NTOs at Birmingham 2022. To take part in B2022 he qualified specifically as a Beach volleyball referee and committed even more time to a number of training events in preparation for the Games (both as Referee and/or NTO). He was an integral part of the team for the UK Beach Volleyball tour (both in 2021 and 2022 including the finals), the European qualification in Edinburgh (Sep 2021) and the amazing Qualification tournament (May 2022) at Crystal Palace. Roberto is a true part of the sport’s B2022 legacy and is planning to be more involved with beach volleyball going forward as soon as the season starts again. 

E – Expertise – This year Roberto was upgraded from Grade 3N to Grade 2 demonstrating his continuous improvement of his refereeing skills and abilities. His commitment above demonstrates how he’s continuously developed his own skills, knowledge, and experience. But what’s more he supports and motivates others less experienced to keep refereeing and to develop their skills. It’s clear to us Roberto loves coaching and mentoring young referees and has a lot to offer there going forward too.  

R – Real nice guy – Every time we see Roberto he has a positive spirit – he always refs with a smile and he genuinely enjoys it. He brings a real professionalism to everything that he does and is an absolute credit to the refereeing community. It’s clear Roberto genuinely cares about refereeing and improving the standards across the sport.  

T – The future – As a young developing referee Roberto is part of the future for our sport and he has great ambitions! Whilst Roberto doesn’t meet the eligibility criteria to become an international referee, he is really keen to be more widely involved with refereeing and with international events – fully supporting Volleyball England’s major events strategy.  

O – Overall Amazing – Overall we can’t thank Roberto enough for his support as a referee and can’t think of anyone that deserves this nomination more for both his work over the last 12 months but also looking forward to his future impact on the sport. At the U18 Last 8s he gave our U18 girls team an inspiring talk at the end of the competition about their progress and how proud they should be of their achievements – inspiring those young ladies in their volleyball journeys. He’s always keen to make his contribution to spread the values and the goodness of volleyball as well as being a referee that genuinely cares for the future of the game.