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The British American Football Referees' Association (BAFRA) is the organisational body for American Football Referees in Britain. BAFRA is affiliated to the British American Football Association.
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BAFRA was established in 1984 and provides game officials for American Football games played in the British Leagues. BAFRA officials are eligible to officiate in International Federation of American Football fixtures if selected to do so and in recent years BAFRA has provided personnel for the chain crews at NFL International Series games played at Wembley Stadium.
Association Governance
There 8 directors of BAFRA and several working committees are convened during the year as required. The Association has five stated objectives:
- To improve the standard of officiating by training and examination, and by any other means
- To enable all American football games in Britain to have neutral officials
- To promote and uphold the status of officials both collectively and individually
- To co-operate and to cultivate good relations with all bodies concerned with American football, for the betterment of the game
- To take such action or make such representation as an Association, or in conjunction with others as may be considered desirable, in the interests of American football in Britain in general or for the benefit of officials and officiating in particular
Training
An annual convention is held (typically in March or April), during which a number of training videos and breakout sessions are conducted, together with the Annual General Meeting. A guest speaker is invited to participate—to mark the association's 25th anniversary in 2009, the guest speaker was Greg Gautreaux, the field judge at Super Bowl XLIII.
The John Slavin Trophy
John Slavin was a long-serving BAFRA official and also a director of the Association, who died in October 2005. In his memory BAFRA dedicated an annual award to be made to any UK team that shows commitment to improving the game experience for players and fans, as well as officials. The criteria for the award is decided at the start of each season by the rules committee to reflect varying aspects of game management that would benefit from improvement.
Previous National winners of the trophy
Previous University winners of the trophy
Weekly newsletter
Within its website BAFRA publishes an open weekly online newsletter called Newsflash that includes items of interest, notices of appointment, game reports, disciplinary decisions and any rule changes.