The man who used to run the rule on the pitch as a referee is now helping to run Singapore football.

Yazeen Buhari was a Fifa referee from 2011 to 2013, and worked as a relationship manager with RHB Bank from 2006 to 2008 after pursuing sports management studies in Perth, Australia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Australia.

Before his eight-month stint as a Sport Singapore (SportSG) assistant director from July 2015 to February 2016, he was general manager of Singapore Athletics (SA) for a year from August 2014.

Tang Weng Fei, who worked with Yazeen when he was the association's president then, said: "Besides leading the secretariat to a successful SEA Games 2015, Yazeen has been involved greatly in the movement of our office to the Sports Hub, the establishment of our Home of Athletics at Kallang Practice Track and the rebranding exercise of SA.

"Within the SA secretariat team, Yazeen had built a close-knit team that was always behind him."

Yazeen left SportSG in February last year to join the FAS as its head of development and planning for 10 months before moving on to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to lead its planning and strategy department.

In about eight months, he returned to the FAS as deputy general secretary, with AFC general secretary Windsor John paying him a glowing tribute.

He said then: "Even though Yazeen was with us for a short while, he proved to be more than capable of fulfilling his duties and responsibilities professionally.

"He is very hard-working, committed, and passionate about football development. His knowledge on football management and the game itself will be his greatest asset."

David Lee