{"id":166176,"date":"2025-06-08T22:34:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T21:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/breaking-epls-first-black-referee-uriah-rennie-dies-at-65"},"modified":"2025-06-09T00:41:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T23:41:54","slug":"breaking-epls-first-black-referee-uriah-rennie-dies-at-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/breaking-epls-first-black-referee-uriah-rennie-dies-at-65","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: EPL\u2019s first black referee Uriah Rennie dies at 65"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Former FIFA and Premier League referee Uriah Rennie has died at the age of 65.<\/p>\n<p>Uriah\u2019s death was confirmed in a statement from the Football Association, FA, on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>It read: \u201cthe FA Refereeing Department is saddened to hear of the passing of former FIFA and Premier League referee, Uriah Rennie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUriah will forever be remembered as a true trailblazer of the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur thoughts are with Uriah\u2019s family and friends at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Uriah was the Premier League\u2019s first Black referee.<\/p>\n<p>He officiated more than 300 top-flight games between 1997 and 2008, with his first fixture a clash between Derby and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n<p>His death comes weeks after he became Chancellor at Sheffield Hallam University, having spoken out about his battle with a rare condition that left him paralysed from the waist down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Former FIFA and Premier League referee Uriah Rennie has died at the age of 65. Uriah\u2019s death was confirmed in a statement from the Football Association, FA, on Sunday. It read: \u201cthe FA Refereeing Department is saddened to hear of the passing of former FIFA and Premier League referee, Uriah Rennie. \u201cUriah [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":166174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[1578,885,254,17722],"class_list":["post-166176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-breaking","tag-epl","tag-nigeria","tag-uriah-rennie"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>BREAKING: EPL\u2019s first black referee Uriah Rennie dies at 65 - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former FIFA and Premier League referee Uriah Rennie has died at the age of 65. Uriah\u2019s death was confirmed in a stateme ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/breaking-epls-first-black-referee-uriah-rennie-dies-at-65\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING: EPL\u2019s first black referee Uriah Rennie dies at 65\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former FIFA and Premier League referee Uriah Rennie has died at the age of 65. 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