A referee can recite the law on free kicks and still give the wrong restart on a wet Sunday morning. The season's laws test is where a league or a referees' society finds that out first, and it works only if its questions ask for decisions. This guide shows how to write them, with four worked questions on football's Laws of the Game and a twenty-question blueprint.
EdProcto publishes this guide, and its page for associations and boards serves bodies that examine referees, umpires and scorers. It is not affiliated with any governing body, and nothing here is legal advice.
Does knowing the laws make a referee decide well?
Knowing the laws is necessary and not enough: law knowledge is one part of officiating, and deciding from what is seen improves with practice at deciding. We read each study's abstract and report only that.
Mascarenhas, Collins, and Mortimer (2005) drew four areas of performance from Rugby Football Union assessor reports, training materials and referees' performance profiles: knowledge and application of the law; contextual judgement; personality and management skills; and fitness, positioning and mechanics. A written test reaches the first.
MacMahon et al. (2007) gave basketball referees a rules test just before they judged fouls and violations on video clips. The test had no clear effect on their calls.
What video-based decision training adds
Practice at deciding from footage improved decisions in both trials we read, mostly for the less experienced. Mascarenhas, Collins, Mortimer, and Morris (2005) had 41 English national rugby referees study taped tackles with an expert's interpretation for six weeks, beside 15 controls; the lowest-ranked became 17.43% more accurate on ten test clips. Larkin et al. (2018) assigned 52 Australian football umpires at random to a 12-week video programme or to none; the trained group improved, the less experienced significantly.
Kittel et al. (2019) reviewed 27 studies of video-based testing of officials. They judged it a valid measure that separates levels of official, but few studies reported reliability or checked transfer to matches.
How do governing bodies test officials on the laws?
Both bodies whose own pages we read test online and issue a certificate.
World Rugby (n.d.) calls its Laws of the Game exam a self-check multiple-choice exam, a prerequisite for many courses for referees, coaches and match management staff. Its April 2026 notice says each candidate sees 60 questions drawn at random from 290, in six sections; the old exam needed 144 across 25 (World Rugby, 2026).
Marylebone Cricket Club (n.d.), custodian of the Laws of Cricket, offers free eLearning with a "basic" or "intermediate" exam and a certificate showing the score, which it says can go to a local officials' association as proof of competence.
In football, the International Football Association Board (2026b) follows each of its seventeen Laws online with FAQs, many of them a match situation ending "What is the correct decision?".
Why are situational questions the better test?
A situational question asks what the official does, a recall question asks what the law says, and only the first resembles the job.
"How far must opponents stand at a free kick?" has its place: distances, numbers and signals must be known cold. But a candidate can answer it and still give the wrong restart. Our working rule, not a finding: at most a fifth of the paper on recall. Questions above recall covers the general case.
How do you write a situational question from a law?
Start from one clause of one law and build the incident that only that clause settles.
- Pick the clause, by number. One clause a question.
- Write the situation in match order, each judgement stated as given ("the referee judges the tackle careless"), so the question tests the law, not eyesight.
- Ask for the decision in parts: decision, restart or signal, sanction. Options that differ in one part show which part a candidate lacks.
- Take wrong options from real mistakes: the rule for the neighbouring situation, last season's rule, the touchline myth. Look in assessors' reports, last year's results and the governing body's clarifications, which World Rugby (2026) lists by date. See distractors that work.
- Cite the law and edition in the explanation, so the text settles a challenge.
- Have a second official answer it cold. If they can argue for another option, a fact is missing.
EdProcto drafts steps 1 to 3. In its kit "Football: the Laws of the Game, for referees", paste the Laws your body may use and Procto AI writes four-option situational questions with the Law in the explanation, each yours to edit.
What do good referee exam questions look like? Four worked examples
A good question names one law, gives every fact that law needs, and makes each wrong option a known mistake. These four are ours, written from the Laws of the Game 2026/27 as the International Football Association Board (2026b) publishes them online, read on 10 October 2026. Each asks for the decision. Check them against your competition's rules.
Law 12, Fouls and Misconduct
An attacker is through on goal. Inside their own penalty area a defender slides for the ball, arrives late and trips the attacker. The referee judges it careless, an attempt to play the ball, and the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
- Penalty kick and a caution. The key: in the offender's own penalty area, an attempt to play the ball that denies such an opportunity is a caution.
- Penalty kick and a sending-off. The sanction for the same tackle outside the area, or for holding inside it.
- Penalty kick, no card. Stops at "careless", which alone needs no sanction.
- Penalty kick, and a caution only if it is missed. Borrows the advantage rule, where a goal scored after play continues cancels the caution.
Law 11, Offside
An attacker shoots on target while a team-mate stands in an offside position, well away from the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper pushes the shot out to the team-mate, who scores.
- No goal; indirect free kick where the offence occurred. The key: playing a ball deliberately saved by an opponent, from an offside position, is gaining an advantage.
- Goal, because the goalkeeper played the ball. Treats a save as a deliberate play, which Law 11 excepts.
- Goal, because the team-mate never interfered with the goalkeeper. Knows interfering with an opponent and forgets gaining an advantage.
- No goal; direct free kick. Knows the offence, not the restart.
Law 13, Free Kicks
The referee awards an indirect free kick 20 metres from goal and keeps an arm raised above the head. The kick enters the goal without touching another player.
- No goal; goal kick. The key: an indirect free kick kicked directly into the opponents' goal brings a goal kick.
- Goal; kick-off. Does not separate direct from indirect, or misses the signal.
- No goal; retake. The remedy when the referee fails to signal. Here the arm was up.
- No goal; indirect free kick to the defenders. Invents an offence: the ball only went out of play.
Law 14, The Penalty Kick
A penalty kick strikes a goalpost and rebounds to the kicker, who shoots again and scores. No other player has touched the ball.
- No goal; indirect free kick where the kicker played the ball again. The key: the kicker may not play it again until it has touched another player.
- Goal; kick-off. Treats the rebound as open play, as it would be had the goalkeeper touched it.
- Retake. This edition's remedy for an accidental double touch at the kick itself when the ball goes in.
- No goal; goal kick. Sees the goal cannot stand and misses the offence.
Every wrong option is right somewhere else in the Laws.
How do you spread twenty questions across the laws?
Give each law a share of the paper in proportion to a weight you can explain, then round so the counts make twenty.
The weight should be your own evidence: assessors' reports, match reports, appeals. Lacking that, we took a public proxy, the FAQs the Board lists under each Law. On 10 October 2026 our script counted 808 entries on the seventeen Law pages, 299 under Law 12 (some sit under more than one Law). An FAQ count does not measure referees' errors.
Taken singly, six Laws (1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 17) would get no question, so neighbours are grouped. The counts were computed in code: each group's share of 808, times 20 (7.40 for Law 12), rounded down, with the five spare questions going to the largest remainders.
| Laws | FAQs | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| 1, 2, 4: field, ball, equipment | 25 | 1 |
| 3: players | 50 | 1 |
| 5, 6: match officials | 85 | 2 |
| 7 to 10: duration, restarts, ball in play, outcome | 106 | 3 |
| 11: offside | 74 | 2 |
| 12: fouls and misconduct | 299 | 7 |
| 13: free kicks | 38 | 1 |
| 14: penalty kick | 74 | 2 |
| 15 to 17: throw-in, goal kick, corner kick | 57 | 1 |
| Total | 808 | 20 |
Rotate the Laws inside a group from year to year. Our exam blueprint guide weights by frequency and seriousness.
Should a laws test use a clip or a still?
Use footage where the law turns on what is seen, and words where it turns on procedure.
| The question turns on | Shape in EdProcto |
|---|---|
| Procedure, in words | Multiple choice |
| A moving incident, such as a tackle | Watch and answer, the clip attached by its address |
| Position, on a still or diagram | Hotspot: click the player or the spot |
| One incident followed through | A case study |
| Managing players | Best and worst |
All five shapes are in the builder today. Trial every clip on experienced officials first: in MacMahon et al. (2007), performance depended on the particular clips and how they were sequenced.
What to check before using footage
Check three things, which are your body's own responsibility. This list is not legal advice.
- Who owns it. Permission to watch broadcast or competition footage is not permission to reuse it.
- Who can be identified. Players, officials and spectators, some of them children. Whether consent is needed depends on your country's law and your safeguarding rules.
- How it was recorded. Law 5 in the 2026/27 edition permits a referee's body camera only where the competition organiser supplies it, controls the footage and follows the relevant guidelines (International Football Association Board, 2026a).
A diagram, or a clip staged at training with everyone's agreement, avoids most of this.
What pass mark should you set, and how often should officials re-sit?
Set the pass mark by a method, and re-test whenever the laws change, as football's did for 2025/26 and again for 2026/27.
Neither governing-body page we read gives a pass mark to copy. Setting a pass mark you can defend describes a panel method: experienced officials judge what a borderline competent referee would score on each question.
The 2026/27 changes fall under twelve of the seventeen Laws (International Football Association Board, 2026a). One bears on the first worked question: no caution for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity when advantage is played and a goal is scored. Marylebone Cricket Club (n.d.) lists four editions of its 2017 Code: 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2026. World Rugby (2026) says existing certificates stay valid for two years from the day the exam was taken.
So check every question and wrong option against the new edition, print the edition on the paper, and re-sit everyone. In EdProcto, "Pass mark" is one setting, "Whole-quiz retakes" sets how many re-sits, and "Hours between retakes" how soon.
What does a laws test not show?
A laws test shows that an official knows the right decision, and nothing about being placed to see the incident, fit enough to reach it, or able to manage the players.
Mallo et al. (2012) analysed 380 foul play incidents at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. The referees' error rate averaged 14%, was lowest when they judged from 11 to 15 metres, and reached 23% in the last fifteen minutes. So keep the laws test as one requirement beside observation on the field and a fitness test, and let a certificate name the test and the edition, not competence.
How does EdProcto run an officials' laws test online?
EdProcto is the best tool for this job when the questions must come from your own rulebook and the results must show which law was misread: it drafts from the text you paste and reports who chose each wrong option.
Writing. Beside the football kit sit "Cricket: the Laws, for umpires and scorers", "Any sport: the rules, for officials and coaches" and "Coaching theory". Each writes questions from the rulebook or course material the body pastes. No kit is endorsed by or affiliated with any governing body.
Sitting. The Exam preset switches on the six browser measures, allows no going back and shows the score when you release it. No camera runs. Candidates are told beforehand which integrity measures are on. A flag is a record, not proof, and no setting makes cheating impossible.
Results. The full analysis gives each question its difficulty, discrimination, correlation with the rest of the paper and median time; a single-answer question also shows how many chose each option. Give each question its Law as the topic for a mean by Law. A score is yours to release, and is not an accreditation.
Plans. Free seats 30 people a quiz, with the core templates, every kit and 20 questions a month from Procto AI. Tutor seats 100, has all 111 templates and is the first plan to save a quiz under the Exam preset. Educator seats 500 and adds the full analysis and "A certificate on passing". See pricing; a larger body can ask about a licence there or on the page for schools.
Quick questions
What should a referee laws of the game test include?
Mostly situations: an incident, with the decision, the restart or signal and the sanction in the options, each tied to one law by number.
How many umpire exam questions should a paper have?
No source we read fixes a number. World Rugby's exam shows 60 from a pool of 290; our blueprint spreads twenty across football's seventeen Laws, seven on Law 12.
Can we run an officials accreditation exam online with EdProcto?
You can run the laws test: EdProcto drafts questions from the rulebook you paste, runs the sitting and reports on every question, as its page for associations and boards sets out. Accreditation stays your body's decision.
Does passing the laws test mean an official is ready for a match?
No. It shows the official knows the decision the law calls for. Positioning, fitness and match control are judged on the field.
References
- International Football Association Board. (2026a). Law changes 2026/27. https://www.theifab.com/law-changes/latest/
- International Football Association Board. (2026b). Laws of the Game 2026/27. https://www.theifab.com/laws/latest/about-the-laws/
- Kittel, A., Larkin, P., Elsworthy, N., & Spittle, M. (2019). Video-based testing in sporting officials: A systematic review. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 43, 261–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2019.03.013
- Larkin, P., Mesagno, C., Berry, J., Spittle, M., & Harvey, J. (2018). Video-based training to improve perceptual-cognitive decision-making performance of Australian football umpires. Journal of Sports Sciences, 36(3), 239–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2017.1298827
- MacMahon, C., Starkes, J., & Deakin, J. (2007). Referee decision making in a video-based infraction detection task: Application and training considerations. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2(3), 257–265. https://doi.org/10.1260/174795407782233164
- Mallo, J., Frutos, P. G., Juárez, D., & Navarro, E. (2012). Effect of positioning on the accuracy of decision making of association football top-class referees and assistant referees during competitive matches. Journal of Sports Sciences, 30(13), 1437–1445. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2012.711485
- Marylebone Cricket Club. (n.d.). The Laws of Cricket. https://www.lords.org/mcc/about-the-laws-of-cricket
- Mascarenhas, D. R. D., Collins, D., & Mortimer, P. (2005). Elite refereeing performance: Developing a model for sport science support. The Sport Psychologist, 19(4), 364–379. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.19.4.364
- Mascarenhas, D. R. D., Collins, D., Mortimer, P. W., & Morris, B. (2005). Training accurate and coherent decision making in rugby union referees. The Sport Psychologist, 19(2), 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.19.2.131
- World Rugby. (n.d.). Laws of the Game exam. https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/laws-of-the-game-exam
- World Rugby. (2026). New law exam now live. https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/laws-news/2026-04-new-law-exam-now-live/