The Premier League announced the match officials for Matchweek 38 of the 2025/26 season, appointing Michael Oliver as referee for one of the final‑round fixtures.
Oliver will be supported on his appointment by assistants Stuart Burt and James Mainwaring, with Bobby Madley named as the fourth official. Paul Tierney was listed as the Video Assistant Referee for Oliver’s game. The league’s release covered 10 officials listings for the weekend that closes out the campaign.
The officials announcement comes as the fixture list reaches its decisive, season‑ending stage. Among the fixtures covered by the Matchweek 38 roster is the high‑profile Manchester City versus Aston Villa meeting, and the league supplied full referee teams for the slate of final matches.
Unlike a simple name roll‑call, the release gave a complete team around Oliver — two assistants, a fourth official and a VAR — a structure intended to show the full matchday complement. Those details matter because the composition of a referee team tells clubs and supporters who will be involved in on‑field and VAR decision‑making when the last points are awarded and the final outcomes of the season are settled.
What the Premier League did not do in the text provided was match each refereeing team to a specific fixture. The listings present a complete set of officials for the weekend but do not identify, in the version of the release available, which appointed teams will take which of the individual matches. That leaves a gap between the officials named and the particular games they will oversee.
The gap is consequential because Matchweek 38 is the final round of the 2025/26 season and will include matches — including man city vs aston villa — where single decisions can affect titles, European qualification and relegation. Supporters and clubs will want clarity on who will be in charge of those matches before kickoff; the league’s format, as published, supplies the personnel without linking them explicitly to the fixtures in the publicly available list.
For now, Michael Oliver is the named referee for one closing‑week fixture, backed by assistants Stuart Burt and James Mainwaring, with Bobby Madley and Paul Tierney attached in the fourth‑official and VAR roles respectively; the Premier League has provided a complete set of 10 officials listings across Matchweek 38 but has left the specific pairings between teams and referee crews unclear. The single, sharpened question after this release is simple: which of the weekend’s fixtures — and in particular whether the Man City vs Aston Villa game — will be governed by Oliver’s team when the final whistle falls?
