York referee Matt Messias has welcomed the move towards an elite corps of professional men in black for the FA Premiership.

In a daring new initiative unveiled by the Football Association top referees will from next season be able to go full-time earning salaries from a minimum of £33,000 and possibly as high as £60,000 a year.

It was a move that was fully endorsed by the 37-year-old Messias, who, midway through last season, was promoted to the FA Premier League after three years refereeing in the Football League

He will find out this weekend at a meeting of FA Premier League referees whether he will be enlisted in the newly-proposed elite division of 24 to benefit from the switch into full-time officiating next season.

Messias, a physical education teacher at Thirsk School, said that he was fully in favour of the move to professionalism among referees. He insisted that it would put officials on a more equal footing, increase the standard and fitness of referees, and more importantly, generate a greater level of respect for the men in the middle of the domestic game's money-laden arena.

Declared Messias: "Referees have always been professional in their approach and their work, but they have not been paid on a professional level.

"When you have someone like Roy Keane (Manchester United's captain) earning £70,000 a week and you as a referee are earning peanuts what respect is a referee going to get.

"There is so much money in the game, which is so much more faster and so much more professional in its coverage and exposure. It is time the referees were able to catch up. This is move will give referees a lot more respect."

Messias, who started refereeing in the York local leagues at the age of 23 after a cartilage operation halted his own playing days, confirmed that he was one of a number of leading referees who were approached earlier in the season about their views on professionalism.

Until this weekend's meeting at the Forest of Arden hotel in Warwickshire he will not know if he has made the final leap into the stratosphere of the first fully-paid professional refereeing ranks, but he has always been in favour of referees being paid.

"It is the right way forward," said Messias, whose final dissertation at York's St John's College back in 1987 was on the need for football referees to go professional.

"This venture will give referees the chance to devote more time to the skill of refereeing," he said.

"Someone like me, say, will not have to leave work at midday to then get down to London for a 7.45pm kick-off. You sometimes get to the ground feeling flustered and a bit rushed.

"This will eliminate that and you will have more time to prepare for the game. Referees will also get more time to train, to study videos of matches, to thoroughly analyse their performances.

Updated: 09:25 Thursday, June 14, 2001