For a 16 team league, a minimum of 8 referees will be required each week. The main issue will be how lenient or strict they are (and whether this applies to penalties or cards or both), but you could also apply differences in how consistent their decision-making is and whether they have weak personalities that are impacted by a home crowd.
Option 1: Lenient/Strict Only (note this list could be made random and/or easily be expanded wider by adding very lenient and very strict categories)
| Names (genuine Dickens characters!)
|
Penalties
|
Cards
|
| Skimpole
|
Normal
|
Normal
|
| Honeythunder
|
Normal
|
Lenient
|
| Bumble
|
Normal
|
Strict
|
| Sweedlepipe
|
Lenient
|
Normal
|
| Wackles
|
Lenient
|
Lenient
|
| Wopsle
|
Lenient
|
Strict
|
| Smike
|
Strict
|
Normal
|
| Tulkinghorn
|
Strict
|
Lenient
|
| Podsnap
|
Strict
|
Strict
|
Option 2: (Randomly?) Give each ref three characteristics (which can be applied jointly or independently to both penalties and cards) so they have unique personalities
|
|
Lenient to Strict
|
Consistent to Random
|
Weak to Strong
|
| High
|
More likely to give penalties / cards
|
High variation in decisions
|
Low likelihood of favouring the home side
|
| Medium
|
Average likelihood of giving penalties / cards
|
Medium variation in decisions
|
Medium likelihood of favouring the home side
|
| Low
|
Less likely to give penalties / cards
|
Low variation in decisions
|
High likelihood of favouring the home side
|