Retired soccer referees, instructors from SADC hold workshop

Retired soccer referees and instructors from SADC countries who gathered here for a weeklong FIFA Referees' FUTURO Course left the Namibian capital with one voice after the course brought uniformity in the different “slight interpretations” usually made by match officials. Speaking on the sidelines of the course, FIFA's Germany based instructor Merere Gonzales, noted that there had been some different theoretical understandings of the game, which affected practical performance during a match. Member Associations from Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Tanzania, Mauritius, Kenya, Uganda, Seychelles, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi and the hosts all made up the course which included two female officials.

Fresh from the just ended Germany Confederations Cup, Gonzales explained that referees from various countries misinterpreted issues like the advantage signal, the play-on signal and the no foul signal as the same. “If you look closely some referees use the same hands-signal on all these incidents yet they carry different judgments, resulting in the fans get confused and booing the referees, especially in tournaments where the same fans get to watch the same players but different referees in each match”, said Gonzales. The attending instructors were taught how to react if there is no foul as it is different to the play on signal. The FIFA instructor revealed that FIFA chose to use retired referees in this Futuro III course since most of them are national instructors in their countries. “It’s a snowball spill-off process whereby these graduates will be tasked to teach their member associations”, said British Instructor John Baker thanking Namibia for allowing FIFA to host the FUTURO III.

According to Gonzalez, FIFA had tasked referees to be pioneers in the fight against racism which is rampant in European leagues, as such all referees will now be wearing black and white wristbands on international duty. Gonzales appreciated the COSAFA referees who last month urged CAF and FIFA to only appoint referees capable of running more than 3000 meters in 12 minutes as fit for international assignments. As it were, FIFA’s fitness requirements from match officials have toughened. At the recently concluded Under 20 World Youth Championship in Holland, 13 match officials were sent back to their countries for failing fitness tests. “Of all the countries that are invited to officiate a tournament, if one of the three match officials fail a fitness test then the whole team is released of duty unlike previously where the one that failed would go back alone and that's what happened in Holland, some of those referees were fit but let down by their counterparts”.

Gonzales cited the example of a Ugandan referee who had been booked for the World Cup 2006, but failed a fitness test in March and recently in Holland, “which means he will not be allowed to officiate in Germany 2006”. The Futuro III course was held in Ghana last October and Bangladesh in September and for the 14 SADC countries that gathered last week, only South Africa and Seychelles had one representative while the other associations had two.

FIFA sponsored all the associations with 50% of the expenses. Namibia’s Minister of Sport John Mutorwa who officially opened the course applauded the hosting of the course in Namibia noting that it came at the most appropriate time when the country’s mother body NFA had just announced its first National Team Technical Director in two years. “It is exciting to see referees from 14 different countries being taught new measures like these”, said Mutorwa. According to the Minister, acquisition of skills should be a prerogative even to the local administrators to avoid Namibia falling out of World Cup 2010 in South Africa. On the closing of the course, the instructors had time out at the SOS Village where they played a friendly game against an SOS select side before donating football kits to the Village.