Whilst the world’s top rugby nation’s announce their squads for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, another elite squad has been put together for this September’s pinnacle competition.
World Rugby announced the match officials squad, which sees the world’s best referees, assistant referees and Television Match Officials come together for the competition.
However, some of these officials have interesting day jobs when they are not running the play behind the whistle.
Here are the weird and wonderful day jobs, of the 2023 Rugby World Cup’s match officials.
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1 Ben O’Keeffe – Eye Doctor
Ben O’Keeffe is one of New Zealand’s six full-time rugby referees. Alongside O’Keeffe’s on-field role, which sees him take charge of Super Rugby’s most exciting talents, the 34-year-old is also a fully-qualified ophthalmologist or eye doctor.
Dr Ben specialises in eye health and disease, and he is the Director and Founder of oDocs Eye Care. O’Keeffe established the organisation eight years ago, with the company striving to end preventable blindness through state of the art techniques.
The goal of oDocs is to make eye care more affordable across the globe, with the rugby referee at the heart of the ground-breaking progressions.