I played semi-professional football for 11 years, had to give up when I was 32 due to a succession of bad knee injuries. Never played in the conference, but played in the Southern and Ryman leagues. I did my referees training as I felt that it would be a good option rather than playing - i.e. still involved in the sport. I kind of assumed there would be some sort of fast-track process for someone like me, as believe me you learn a lot of underhand tactics playing at the level I did
In order to even referee at the level I played at, which obviously is a long way from the premier league would have taken at least 5-6 years. Not to sound big headed, but given my past experience I would have thought that would have counted for something. Didn't want to jump the queue completely and it should obviously be dependent on performance, but after finding that out a lot of my enthusiasm went and I no longer referee. I was hoping to make a career of it at the highest level I could get to, but the timeline was just too long. Seems that referees have to be career referees and not ex players.......