Warner urges regional referees to raise their standard.
By: Shaun Fuentes.[/size]
FIFA Vice President Jack Warner made a stern call for referees in the region to step up their officiating and is appealing to FIFA instructors Ken Wallace and Sandra Hunt to go all out in passing on further knowledge to the referees taking part in the six-day FIFA Futuro III Referee Instructors’ Course being conducted at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, Macoya.
Warner was speaking at the opening ceremony for the course on Monday morning as nineteen participants from ten Caribbean nations began the proceedings which was planned by the FIFA Development Officer Harold Taylor and his team at the FIFA Development Office,Centre of Excellence. Haiti, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Belize, Grenada, St Kitts/Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, US Virgin Islands and T&T are all represented at the course.
Warner lashed out at the fact that currently there is no referee up to the standard of making it at FIFA World events and that very little have shown promise in recent times including those at the just concluded Caribbean Football Union Under 16 Youth Cup.
“There is not a single referee of substance here at the moment,” Warner said.
“In fact some our referees have been mercenaries and most times all they are concerned with is how much they can earn for officiating the game and they care very little about their performance on the field.”
Warner appealed to the FIFA instructors to impart on the participants the importance of “attitude, knowledge and skill” in that order as so many of them were more concerned with whether or not they would benefit financially and become popular through the sport.
“Refereeing is not a sport. It is a vocation. The person on show is not the referee but it is the players instead,” Warner said, adding that it pained him to see the level of officiating at the CFU Youth Cup, pinpointing the final between Mexico and Haiti.
“It pains me when a FIFA referee can give ten yellow cards and two red cards in an Under 16 match – a match which was spoilt by the referee.”
Both Hunt and Wallace promised to offer all their expertise in the area of refereeing development, stressing that the exercise over the six days would not be an easy one but definitely the kind that would benefit the participants who should then go back on and share the knowledge gained to others in their respective countries.
It is intended that the instructors participating in this programme are active at the end of each course, and as such, relevant activity plans will be elaborated by the participating member associations with the support of FIFA. FIFA will decide on a yearly allocation of courses that endeavours to touch all regions. The four referees from T&T taking part in the course include Robin Murray, Noel Bynoe, John Michael Clarke and George Maynard.
