Description of Body Composition and Anthropometric Profile of Iranian Football Referees in Premier League and the Relationship of These Factors with Their Specific Fitness Tests

The purpose of the present study was to describe body composition and anthropometric profile of Iranian football league referees and their relation to the specific fitness tests. Subjects included 70 Iran Premier League men referees as samples that were targeted and accessible. Indices of anaerobic, aerobic performance, body composition and anthropometrics were measured using a standard configuration of the National Football Academy. To determine the relationship between the variables the correlation coefficient of Pearson was used. Iranian football league referees had mean age of 36.37±4.45 years, height of 179.59±6.05 cm, body mass of 75.53±6.2 kg, %BF of 15.11± 3.97, VO2MAX of 54.57±2.82 ml/kg/min and peak & average anaerobic powers 532.66±40.98 & 518.50± 37.72 w, respectively. Also, between anthropometric indices, standing height, weight, length of the lower limb, wrist diameter, elbow and knee diameter with anaerobic power and standing height and diameter of the ankle significant relationship was observed with aerobic power (P≤0.05). Therefore, it seems that indicators such as: tall stature, low body mass index, high VO2MAX and anaerobic power could be important for Football referees’ talent identification and to determine inclusion criteria in regard to elite referees’ selection.