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Championship newbie in charge of Oxford trip – Referee

Fast tracked official Elliot Bell takes his first QPR game on Wednesday night as the R’s head to Oxford.

Referee >>> Elliot Bell (Bootle)

Assistants >>> Rob Smith (Hertfordshire) and Bhupinder Singh Gill (London)

Fourth Official >>> Oliver Langford (West Midlands)

History

No previous QPR appointments.

Stats

It’s been a rapid ascension up the EFL list for Liverpool’s Elliot Bell, who only started refereeing in 2015 and did his first Football League games this time last year when he finished the season with Bristol Rovers 0-0 Shrewsbury and Wycombe 1-0 Charlton in League One.

He started this season mixing National League, League Two and EFL Trophy games before moving into League One. He made his Championship debut at the start of February with Swansea 0-1 Sheff Wed and has since also refereed Derby 0-1 Millwall at this level. He has shown a chunky 124 yellows (3.875) and eight reds in 32 games. He’s shown two red cards in his last two games and seven in his last 15.

In March he became the latest PGMOL official to head over to Japan and referee J-League games as part of the exchange programme the two leagues run together with their match officials. There he refereed Vegalta Sendai 2-0 Oita Trinita, Consadole Sapporo 1-3 JEF United and Jubilo Iwata 2-1 Ventforet Kofu in J-League 2 in the first two weeks of March.

This is his first ever appointment with either Oxford or QPR.


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