Soccer Referee Watch: Why the Apple Watch is the Best Choice
A good soccer referee watch must reliably display time—not just the elapsed game time, but also the remaining time and the added stoppage time due to interruptions. Time is a central aspect in soccer. Whether it’s excessive goal celebrations, theatrical reactions to alleged fouls, or delaying a goal kick: what doesn’t belong to the game shouldn’t count against the time budget. Only then can fairness be maintained.
Soccer Referee Watches with Sin Bin Timer
In lower leagues, personal time penalties add another aspect. For the 2024/25 season, the IFAB has stipulated: “Competition organizers decide who assists the referee in timing sin bins, e.g., a delegate, the fourth official, an assistant referee, or possibly a team official.”
In local leagues, this approach can quickly lead to heated discussions, especially since a sin bin usually follows a critical situation. When multiple sin bins are active, it’s a particular challenge for any referee. To prevent escalation, a soccer referee watch should include a sin bin timer that gives the referee full control and underscores their authority.
The referee app “What's the Score, Bro?” for the Apple Watch enables sin bin management like no other soccer referee watch. On the main screen, the oldest sin bin is clearly visible as a yellow progress bar, without distracting from the timer or game time display. Tapping the sin bin indicator opens a detailed view superior to any other soccer referee watch or app. For each sin bin, the reason, player number, jersey color, and remaining penalty time are displayed as a progress bar. Referees maintain full control over the time.
Soccer Referee Watches with Digital Match Notepad
There was a time when phones were solely for making calls and watches solely for telling time. In 2025, that’s long gone. We use smartphones as remote controls for virtually all aspects of our lives, but rarely for making calls. Our smartwatches record health data, pay at the supermarket checkout, and warn us of the next rain shower.
So why should referees still carry a pen and match notepad onto the field when match assignments and reporting are now fully digitized? A soccer referee watch today can be a small computer with immense power that records all match events in fractions of a second. The limiting factors are the small display and the limited interaction options via the touch interface without a keyboard. However, with good interaction design, this problem can be cleverly and aesthetically solved.
The soccer referee app “What's the Score, Bro?” aims to enable recording all goals, cautions, sin bins, send-offs, and substitutions in less than three seconds. Players and officials are intuitively recognizable and tappable through colored jersey icons with back numbers. No referee watch or app can record multiple substitutions as quickly as “What's the Score, Bro?”. Already cautioned players are marked with the respective card or sin bin. Every piece of information is just a fingertip away on the wrist—pen and paper can confidently stay in the locker room.
Soccer Referee Watches with Fitness Tracking
What sets the smartwatch apart from a classic referee watch are, among other things, the sensors that record health data like heart rate and blood oxygen or provide information about acceleration and altitude. The Apple Watch is a benchmark in fitness tracking among smartwatches. The underlying operating system, watchOS, receives continuous updates and annually introduces improvements and new features, especially for health and fitness tracking.
The soccer referee app “What's the Score, Bro?” consistently utilizes the latest interfaces of watchOS 11 to record performance and movement data. With an Apple Watch Ultra 2, recording movement data is particularly accurate due to its dual-frequency GPS. This precision is especially beneficial on a spatially confined soccer pitch.
In “What's the Score, Bro?”, running paths are recorded across all halves. Their analysis helps referees optimize their movements. It also allows for post-game review of where on the pitch a referee was when a caution or goal was noted. For goals, there’s an optional indicator for a 65-feet radius showing whether the referee was close enough to the action.
A special highlight is the sprint view, providing information about the length of sprints, achieved top speed, and seconds in motion—unique among soccer referee watches.
Additionally, referees receive information about the distance covered per game minute, on average and in total, the distribution of different speed zones, top speed, heart rate development during the game, as well as average and maximum heart rate, an overview of the performance curve in watts, and calorie consumption with a food comparison for energy value.
All these performance data of a game are also compared with the average values of the last ten games with fitness tracking. This clearly shows performance improvements.
Furthermore, the soccer referee app “What's the Score, Bro?” includes a dashboard on the iPhone that compiles many metrics from all games and presents some in charts: the number of all officiated games, the distance covered in all games, the average number of goals or cards per game, highest and lowest recorded temperatures on match days, average stoppage time per half, and more.
Over time, this provides referees with a comprehensive picture of their career that no other referee watch offers.
Soccer Referee Watches with Special Features
Soccer Referee watches can be much more than just timekeepers. Sometimes it’s the little extras that add real value. The soccer referee app “What's the Score, Bro?” turns the Apple Watch into the only watch that lets referees personally rate each match.
Was match management relaxed, and did players behave respectfully? Or were there heated debates and inappropriate comments after the final whistle? This can now be recorded with a single tap when saving the match.
If it comes to a penalty shootout, another otherwise invisible feature of the soccer referee app becomes apparent. The main screen transforms—replacing the timer with a shot-by-shot interface similar to what you’d see in live TV broadcasts. If the referee marks the team kicking first before the shootout begins, the app will then highlight the next team due to take a shot. Hits and misses are visualized as green and red dots.
Conveniently, “What's the Score, Bro?” thinks ahead and automatically ends the game as soon as the shootout result is decided—whether it’s due to an unreachable lead in the number of goals or after the final round.
Soccer Referee Watch with German Football Association (DFB) Endorsement
Ultimately, it can be concluded that the Apple Watch surpasses all traditional soccer referee watches by offering more information and greater functionality on the pitch. While there are smartwatch models that aim to provide similar capabilities, many of these are white-label products manufactured in China. They often suffer from a lack of continuous product maintenance and receive little to no operating system updates throughout their lifecycle.
In contrast, Apple Watch owners can expect regular updates over five to seven years, improving the watch over time and introducing new features.
This extensive product maintenance also benefits the soccer referee app "What's the Score, Bro?", allowing it to continuously evolve and introduce new functionalities. The flexibility of watchOS makes it possible to tailor the user experience on the pitch to the real-world needs of referees.
What's the Score, Bro? thrives on active dialogue with the referee community. Numerous reviews confirm that feedback is welcomed and often implemented. This results in an intuitive and easy-to-use app that allows all match events to be recorded in seconds, while over time giving soccer referees a valuable compendium of their matches and performance metrics.
The best soccer referee watch is an Apple Watch with the "What's the Score, Bro?" app. It was recently featured in the official referee magazine of the German Football Association (DFB).