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Football manager Gareth Southgate spotted wearing Hublot

Russia 2018 placed Gareth Southgate firmly back in the national consciousness, transforming him from penalty-miss punchline into a figure of genuine dignity and tactical intelligence. On his wrist throughout that tournament sat one of the more technically unusual pieces in recent Swiss watchmaking: the Hublot Big Bang Referee FIFA World Cup 2018, reference 400.NX.1100.RX — a piece that blurred the line between Swiss luxury and functional sports technology on the biggest stage in football.

Hublot developed the Big Bang Referee 2018 in its capacity as FIFA's Official Timekeeper, and the watch was no mere co-branded accessory. The 49mm titanium case houses a proprietary connected module running a customised operating system, giving referees pitchside access to VAR (Video Assistant Referee) alerts, match time management, and direct communication with the video review room. The crown-and-pushers interface was deliberately designed to function with gloved hands in match conditions — a genuine engineering consideration rarely found in the luxury segment. The sapphire crystal display sits beneath Hublot's signature bezel architecture, retaining the Big Bang family's DNA despite the radical internals.

For collectors, the reference 400.NX.1100.RX occupies a peculiar and compelling niche. It is not a traditional mechanical piece, which distances it from the mainstream horology market, but its operational history — actually deployed by referees across World Cup matches watched by billions — gives it a provenance that most limited editions simply cannot claim. The 2,018-piece limitation is tight, and the combination of genuine tournament use, Swiss manufacture, and a specific four-year World Cup cycle makes it a strong time-capsule artefact.

Southgate wearing this piece carried its own quiet symbolism. As the manager whose side reached the semi-finals for the first time in 28 years, his association with the tournament's official timekeeping instrument felt entirely appropriate. He wore it with the understated confidence that came to define his public persona during that summer.

On the secondary market the 400.NX.1100.RX trades at a modest premium over its original retail, driven largely by World Cup memorabilia collectors rather than traditional watch buyers. Its smart-watch internals mean long-term functionality is tied to software support, a caveat serious collectors note carefully. UK list price at launch was £4,300.