The relation of athletic expertise and cognitive processes as in judging critical football situations has been extensively studied. “Neural efficiency" suggests that higher expertise is associated with lower (alpha) frequency power in the electroencephalogram (EEG), and these effects have been related to attentional processing. A variety of sport studies investigated neural efficiency using motor tasks. Here, event-related EEG alpha desynchronization (ERD) in addition to behavioural measures is used to investigate neural efficiency in a decision-making task in football refereeing situations. For this purpose, a group of 21 football referees was compared with a group of 21 football players during the judgment of a series of football situations and a resting baseline task. The referees showed better accuracy (t(40) = 6.07, p < .001, Cohen's d = 1.874) and made faster decisions than the players during the decision tasks (t(40) = -4.27, p < .001, Cohen's d = -1.318). In addition, referees showed lower alpha-ERD in the anterior and central brain regions than the control group of players (t(40) = 3.296, p = 0.023 & t(40) = 3.210, p = 0.029, respectively). In conclusion, our results suggest a more efficient cortical function in referees compared to players, as evidenced by lower cortical activation (i.e., weaker ERD) during football decisions. The better performance and the reduced alpha ERD in referees suggest a more efficient cognitive processing, involving possibly attentional resources. Therefore, the present data support the neural efficiency hypothesis.