Sportingly, his assistants are in touch (7)
I believe the answer is:
referee
'sportingly his assistants are' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'touch' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'touch' could be 'refer' (synonyms) and 'refer' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ee' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for referee that I've seen before include "Sports adjudicator" , "One who decides" , "Judge" , "Game official" , "Football official" .)