Referee Sunny Singh Gill is set to make Premier League history this weekend when he takes charge of Crystal Palace v Luton.
He will become the first British South Asian to referee a match at the competition.
Sunny will be the seventh referee from outside the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) Select Group to take charge of a Premier League match this season, following Sam Allison, Sam Barrott, Bobby Madley, Josh Smith, Rebecca Welch and Lewis Smith.
It’s another milestone moment for the Singh Gill family.
Jarnail’s father remains the first and only English Premier League football referee to wear a turban, officiating 150 matches between 2004 and 2010.
Meanwhile, his brother Bhupinder became the first Sikh-Punjabi to serve as a Premier League assistant referee when he ran the line in the match between Southampton and Nottingham Forest in January 2023.
Sunny he told the EFL: “Football has always run in the family. Me and my brother grew up loving the game and like most little kids, we just wanted to play.
“But in our household it was a bit different because when we were in primary school, we knew our dad would be out refereeing on a weekend.
“There were times when he was a fourth official in the Premier League and our friends would say they saw him in Match of the Day!”
Sunny took charge of his first Sunday League match aged just 17 and in April 2021 both he and Bhupinder became the first pair of British South Asians to referee the same Championship match.
“It’s been a lot of hard work training away from the pitch, improving in every department with the help of PGMOL and my coaches,” Sunny, who worked as a prison officer during his time in the EFL, said in a interview on Sky Sports last October.
“Now I want to set more goals and fulfill my dream of becoming the first South Asian to referee in the Premier League.”