The English Premier League will have its first South Asian referee when 39-year-old Sunny Singh Gill blows the whistle at Londons Selhurst Park Stadium on Saturday. He will be continuing the family legacy through performing his duties on the field. Sunny is the elder of the two brothers. When it comes to individuals of Indian heritage officiating in English football, the Gills are trailblazers. Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), which selects referees for Premier League games, confirmed on Tuesday that Sunny will referee the match between Crystal Palace and Luton Town. For most football fans outside of the two clubs, the game itself may not be a huge matchup, but for the Gills, who play in Iver, close to London, it will be a life-changing event.Family of referees View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sunny GIll - Football Referee (@sunny_gill_referee)Gill family Instagram/sunny_gill_refereeGill Brothers Instagram/sunny_gill_refereeRepresenting South Asian cultureJarnail Singh Gill, 62, is the only referee in the English Football League (EFL), the league below the Premier League, to have worn a turban. Jarnail Singh Gill expressed his pride in the Sikh, Asian, and Indian communities in England, sharing that is not just a proud moment for their family but for the others as well. There will be a lot of South Asians watching one of their own officiating at the top level of English football.Journey of Sunny GillOriginating in the Punjabi village of Kokri Beniwal, close to Moga, the family relocated to England when Jarnail Singh was barely three years old.Jarnail began officiating local league games at the age of 20, and soon after, he left his mechanical engineering diploma behind to work as a taxi driver at Heathrow Airport. Later he served with the Metropolitan Police for five years before going back to his true love, officiating 150 EFL games till 2011.Bhupinder, Sunnys brother, works as a referee as well. In 2021, the twins made history by being the first South Asians to officiate in the same EFL game. Bhupinder made history last January when he officiated a Premier League match (Southampton vs. Nottingham Forest) as the first person of Indian descent.Sunny completed a refereeing course when he was fifteen, and two years later he refereed a Sunday league game. Jarnail revealed that Sunny and Bhupinder began officiating local matches at a very young age. Their lack of life experience made it difficult for them to handle the pressure from enthusiastic fans and parents, so they returned to playing football locally. Jarnail revealed that he constantly told them they could re-join whenever they were ready.As time passed, things werent always simple. Sunny had to make the difficult decision to give up refereeing in favor of his work as a prison guard for the London Borough of Hounslow. Last year, he decided to call it quits.Working full-time shift work throughout the week and taking weekends off to officiate events was difficult, according to Sunny. He explained that while one must consider how it may impact their life, he was aware that this was what he intended to accomplish. Sunny stated that he encouraged his family to be patient with him because he believed it would be beneficial in the long run when he was able to pursue a professional football career, which he accomplished. Jarnail Gill (Sunnys father) opens upJarnail shared that he, along with the 30,000 fans in the stadium, will get emotional as a parent witnessing Sunny surpass his own accomplishments and shed a few tears.Jarnail disclosed that Sunnys early passion for football was sparked by their father, who would take the two boys to play linesman for him in neighborhood competitions sponsored by the South Asian community. Growing up, the brothers played neighborhood football at the age of 14, Sunny even showed up for Queens Park Rangers trials.PGMOL Elite Referee Development PlanSunnys father informed that one reason Sunny was able to quit his job and devote himself fully to refereeing is that there are now more options for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) persons to work as match officials in the current ecosystem.Nearly 2,000 referees in England (9.4%) were BAME, according to a 2019 study by the England Football Association.Jarnail stated that referees like Sunny and Bhupinder have benefited from the PGMOL Elite Referee Development Plan, which is funded by the Premier League, FA, and EFL. In the next three years, there will be an attempt to recruit at least 1,000 new referees with a BAME background, as it permitted Sunny to resign from his position last year. But for now, Jarnail is eager for Saturday. He said that he could only give Sunny one piece of advice: enjoy the next ninety minutes. Sunny has a lot more adventures ahead of him this is just the beginning.
