Leslie "Les" William Mottram (born 5 March 1951) is a retired football referee from Scotland best known for supervising two matches in the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the USA.
Mottram turned to refereeing after a brief professional playing career at Airdrie.[1]
He became a professional referee when he left Scotland to officiate in the Japanese J. League.[2]
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Mottram is best remembered in Scotland for an incident in a match between Partick Thistle and Dundee United in February 1993. United's Paddy Connolly "scored" with a sharp shot which hit the supporting stanchion in the back of the net and bounced out. As the United players celebrated, a Thistle outfield player picked up the ball, expecting a kick-off following the "goal". Mottram, however, did not blow his whistle to indicate a goal and waved play-on, apparently assuming that the ball had hit the post. Given that interpretation, he should then have awarded a penalty kick against the Partick outfield player who had handled the ball, which he failed to do.[3] The incident did not affect the outcome of the match, though, as Dundee United comfortably won 4-0.[2] This incident may have been a contributing factor in Scottish clubs abandoning the old style goalposts in subsequent seasons, in favour of the modern style goals (which remain today) with vertical stanchions behind the goals themselves.
Mottram was invited to Japan in 1996. Although his original contract was only for 3 months,[4] J. League organizers, who were impressed by his refereeing ability, offered long term contracts. He refereed 147 matches in J1, 15 in J2 and 25 in the J. League Cup[5] during the seasons of 1996 to 2001, and received four most excellent referee awards in the 1998 to 2002 seasons. He retired from refereeing top league matches in 2002 and, at the same time, was appointed as the chief refereeing instructor by the Japan Football Association. He worked in this job for next four years and also had a seat on the discipline committee of the league for a short time. He was awarded a merit medal[6] in the 2005 seasonal ceremony, then left Japan and went back to Scotland.