For­mer foot­ball ref­er­ee and sports ad­min­is­tra­tor Lennox Sir­juesingh passed away on Sat­ur­day. He cel­e­brat­ed his 82nd birth­day on Ju­ly 27.

He was a for­mer prin­ci­pal of Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School, where he taught for many years up un­til his re­tire­ment.

Sir­juesingh was orig­i­nal­ly from Ce­dros, but he grew up in Di­a­mond Vil­lage. A grad­u­ate of Na­pari­ma Col­lege, he was the fa­ther of five boys and three girls.

He was a very ac­tive mem­ber of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Ch­agua­nas.

Sir­juesingh de­vot­ed more than five decades of his life to the game, first es­tab­lish­ing him­self as a re­spect­ed ref­er­ee be­fore go­ing on to serve foot­ball in sev­er­al im­por­tant ad­min­is­tra­tive ca­pac­i­ties.

His ref­er­ee­ing ca­reer be­gan in 1967, and a decade lat­er, in 1977, he was el­e­vat­ed to the FI­FA In­ter­na­tion­al Ref­er­ees List.

This al­lowed him to of­fi­ci­ate high-stakes in­ter­na­tion­al match­es and tour­na­ments rep­re­sent­ing the Con­ca­caf re­gion and he rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go with dis­tinc­tion on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

He al­so served as sec­re­tary of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion from 1973 to 1978.

He once served as as­sis­tant sec­re­tary of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion and al­so gave many years of ser­vice to the Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, in­clud­ing as gen­er­al sec­re­tary.,

Dur­ing his in­ter­na­tion­al tenure, he of­fi­ci­at­ed a no­to­ri­ous­ly volatile pre-Olympic tour­na­ment match in Bo­livia in 1987, an ex­pe­ri­ence he lat­er wrote about re­gard­ing match se­cu­ri­ty and crowd con­trol.

He served as the sec­re­tary of the Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion from 2005 to 2010.

Sir­juesingh al­so served as the Vice Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Ed­u­ca­tion.

He leaves to mourn his wife, Jen­nifer, two daugh­ters, Tri­cia and El­la, and sis­ter, Jan.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) joined the na­tion­al foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing his pass­ing.

TTFA Pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards, the ex­ec­u­tive, ad­min­is­tra­tion, and the wider foot­ball fam­i­ly ex­tend­ed sin­cere con­do­lences to Sir­juesingh’s fam­i­ly, rel­a­tives, friends, and all those who worked along­side him through­out his dis­tin­guished jour­ney in the game.