[3] Throughout his professional career, Webb drew praise for his authoritative and respected approach to refereeing from football bodies, pundits, colleagues, players and managers.

Webb issued three yellow cards (to Frank Lampard, Claude Makélélé and Fàbregas) in a game that saw 11 substitutions.

[17] No players found their way into the book.The 2007 Football League Cup final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff was an incident-filled match.

As a result of the mêlée, Webb sent off Mikel John Obi of Chelsea and Kolo Touré and Emmanuel Adebayor of Arsenal, and showed yellow cards to Frank Lampard and Cesc Fàbregas.

Webb cautioned Mikel John Obi and Frank Lampard of Chelsea and Tony Hibbert, Phil Neville and Leighton Baines of Everton.

[19] Webb's first international game was at Windsor Park, Belfast, in November 2005 when Northern Ireland hosted Portugal in a friendly match.

[24] A UEFA Champions League group match on 26 September 2006 between Steaua București and Lyon was Webb's first European appointment.

[25] Webb was selected to officiate at the 2007 U-20 World Cup in Canada and his first appointment was a Group D match between Poland and Brazil at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.

[28] Webb was retained for the knock-out stage of the tournament, and refereed a quarter-final in Montreal where Chile defeated Nigeria 4–0 with all four goals being scored in extra time.

[29] In December 2007, Webb was selected as England's representative to referee at UEFA Euro 2008, with Darren Cann and Michael Mullarkey as his assistants.

[36][37] In June 2009, Webb was one of the referees at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa, where he took charge of two games: A 4–3 win for Brazil over Egypt,[38] and a 0–0 draw between Iraq and New Zealand.

[41] He showed yellow cards to Martín Demichelis and Mark van Bommel of Bayern Munich and cautioned Cristian Chivu of Inter Milan.

[citation needed] In December 2011, Webb was named one of the 12 referees selected by UEFA to take charge of games at Euro 2012.

He refereed a Group A match in Fortaleza between Mexico and Brazil, which ended in a 2–0 win for the home nation; Webb issued five cautions.

[47] Webb was the first English referee to take charge of a World Cup final since Jack Taylor in 1974 – a game in which the Netherlands lost to West Germany.

[67] On 6 August 2014, the Premier League announced that Webb had retired from active refereeing in order to take up the role of technical director of the Professional Game Match Officials Board.

[68] In August 2022 it was announced that Webb would return to the Professional Game Match Officials Limited as chief refereeing officer.

The first red card he showed in the Premier League was to Michael Svensson of Southampton for a second bookable offence in a 0–0 draw at Bolton Wanderers on 8 November 2003.

In four fixtures since the 2000–01 season he has issued two red cards in the same game, three times dismissing one player from either side, and once reducing one team (Wimbledon in December 2001) to nine men.

[citation needed] Webb has sent off two goalkeepers since 2000–01: Kelvin Davis of Wimbledon in December 2001[74] and John Filan of Wigan Athletic in March 2004.

[83] In November 2011 he also gained an honorary degree from York St John University as a Doctor of Health Sciences.