By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
Euroleague Basketball announced on Thursday’s evening that Richard Stokes, one of the top officiating experts in Europe has been named as the organisation’s new director of refereeing. He will take over the duties of managing the officiating across the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and Eurocup.
He replaces Costas Rigas, the FIBA Hall of Fame former referee who will continue lending his experience to the company as the Chairman of the recently created Euroleague Basketball Technical Commission.
“Costas Rigas has guided basketball officiating in Europe to its best level ever. Under Costas, European referees as a collective became better and more professional than ever before, and we cannot thank him enough. We can only hope that he continues contributing to the growth of our sport,” Jordi Bertomeu, President and CEO of Euroleague Basketball, said.
“In these 15 years, he has led the process of modernisation in officiating and has contributed to the incorporation of many new rules that have made our competitions a recognized standard leader in world basketball. He leaves as part of his legacy a renewed, young generation of referees whose great technical knowledge assures a strong future for European basketball officiating. In Richard Stokes we have gained a worthy successor, thanks to his experience, refereeing knowledge and familiarity with international referees. I am sure that he will continue the great work done in our refereeing department over the last 15 years.”
Mr. Stokes, 48, started his refereeing career at 18. He qualified as a national referee in his native United Kingdom by the age of 20 and became a FIBA referee in 1993. Mr. Stokes joined the Euroleague competition as a referee for its inaugural season in 2000-01 and officiated the very first game in the new competition between Real Madrid and Olympiacos Piraeus on October 16, 2000. He went on to officiate two of the five games in the Playoffs Final series that season. He also worked the 2003 EuroBasket in Sweden. In 2005 Mr. Stokes joined the FIBA Europe Competitions and Referee Department. For the next decade he was responsible for the qualification, development and training of international and national referees across Europe, becoming Head of the Department in 2011.
“Joining Euroleague Basketball is an exciting opportunity to be involved in the top men’s club competition in Europe as the Director, Refereeing. As such it brings also a great responsibility,” Mr. Stokes said. “I look forward to the challenge of delivering a programme of high-level officiating for the clubs, following the high standards previously established by my predecessor Costas Rigas.”