Meet Your NASO Board Member: Yuya Kiuchi

For most officials, their longest commute to a game is likely a few hours at most. For those at the highest levels, they might have to take a flight across the country to reach their game.

For much of Yuya Kiuchi’s officiating career, he was regularly flying halfway across the world to his assignments. Kiuchi, one of four new NASO board members who came aboard in July 2025, was happy to make those long trips to officiate professional soccer in his native Japan.

Growing up in Tokyo, Kiuchi became interested in officiating at a young age. His father played in a local adult soccer league and also officiated. In Japan, if you play or coach soccer at the local level, you are also responsible for helping officiate games in that league. That was the case for Kiuchi’s father, who would bring home officiating gear, including assistant referee flags.

“My dad had flags at home,” Kiuchi said. “As a five-year-old, I was just playing with the flags, so that got me intrigued by this officiating thing.”

Kiuchi took an officiating course as soon as he was able in middle school. He was still playing soccer at the time and told his coach he was interested in officiating. Kiuchi would help out as assistant referee for games in which his coach served as referee.

Kiuchi received his bachelor’s degree from Sophia University in Tokyo in 2004; while at Sophia, Kiuchi studied abroad for a year at Boston College. He would return to the area a few years later to get his master’s from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Kiuchi then earned his doctorate from Michigan State University and has worked at Michigan State ever since. He is the graduate director of the school’s online master’s program and is also a professor in youth development and family and community services.

From the early 2000s. when Kiuchi arrived stateside until he retired from officiating in 2020, he would regularly travel back to Japan for his soccer assignments. Kiuchi worked in the J1 League, the highest level of professional soccer competition in Japan.

“Most of my officiating was in Japan,” he said. “When I was in Boston or Michigan, I would fly back to Japan to do games.”

Since retiring from his onfield career, Kiuchi has been a national referee coach with U.S. Soccer and a referee assessor with the Professional Referee Organization (PRO). He is also the state director of the Michigan Soccer Referee Program.

“We assess referees in MLS (Major League Soccer), NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) and some of the top leagues in the USL (United Soccer League),” Kiuchi said of his position with PRO.

Kiuchi first became involved with NASO about a decade ago when he was officiating high school soccer in Michigan. Currently, all high school sports officials in Michigan are NASO members through the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s NASO group membership. When he retired from officiating high school soccer, Kiuchi briefly moved away from NASO because he was no longer officiating in the U.S. and was still busy with his career in Japan. After retiring from officiating in Japan and becoming a coach and assessor, Kiuchi began working with others involved in NASO, including longtime soccer referee Sandra Serafini, who finished her term on the NASO board last year.

As a coach and assessor, Kiuchi hopes to focus on recruitment and retention during his time on the board.

“Why is it that people stay in officiating and how can we reinforce that positive environment and positive experience? And what is it that drives people away from officiating, the negative experiences, and what can we do to minimize those negative experiences?” Kiuchi said. “That’s something I really want to look at, and then work across sports and across levels of competition to see what we can do.”