Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Uzbekistan’s Ravshan Irmatov won his second straight AFC Referee of the Year Award for men on Tuesday, once again proving to be the continent’s top performer with the whistle.

Irmatov won the Award against some tough competition with Australian Matthew Breeze and Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura also in the frame.

All three are Asian candidates for the FIFA World Cup 2010 finals.

An emotional Irmatov dedicated his victory to late Malaysian former referee instructor Nazri Abdullah, who died one year ago.

“He was my guru and taught me a lot and I dedicate this award to him,” Irmatov told the-afc.com.

“I didn’t specifically try for this award, but I just did the best I can in each match.”

Irmatov said the toughest match of the year was the Saudi Arabia versus Bahrain FIFA World Cup play-off second leg, which finished 2-2.

“It wasn’t such a difficult match in the end, but there was a lot of pressure because the result was important.”

Referees are the unsung heroes of football. They are the central figures of any on-field and sometimes, off-field, decisions that are made during a football match.

The success of a match is often dictated by the performance of the referee.

The AFC Referee of the Year Award for men is based on the points awarded for performances in each match. These points are collated and compared in a structured system before a winner is finally decided.

First, the grades of those referees who have officiated in at least five matches up to the end of June 2009 involving the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification, the AFC Asian Cup 2011 qualification, the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup are examined.

From these, the AFC Referees Department identifies referees who have officiated in at least one match after September 2009 involving the latter stages of the same tournaments.

The AFC then collates the grades of those remaining and takes the highest five grades from each nominee for the four tournaments.

The top five nominees are the identified and the winner is finalised by an Appointment Sub Committee, taking into consideration the following factors:

• Referees whose overall average is 8.4 and below and those who have obtained grades 8.4 and below more than twice should not be selected
• Grades by Video Assessors are consideration, if necessary
• Importance and difficulty of the each match
• Consistency of performance

Irmatov proved to be the deserving winner of the 2009 AFC Referee of the Year Award, for his outstanding performances in important matches this year, including a semi-final clash in the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2009 in Nigeria.

Irmatov obtained an excellent average of 8.96 for his matches and was deemed to be a worthy winner of the 2009 AFC Referee of the Year Award for men. This is Irmatov’s second straight AFC Referee of the Year Award.