Delivering Excellence
By Ray Olivier (TheFA.com).
Monday, 05 November 2007.
Ray Olivier, Regional Referees Manager for the Midlands, reports for TheFA.com on the CONCACAF Intermediate Referees Workshop held between 16 and 19 October 2007.
This workshop, held in Trinidad and Tobago, was an Intermediate Referees Course aimed at referees and assistant referees who were identified and selected by their National Associations as showing potential to progress to a higher level. In total, there were 19 participants who attended the course.
The programme was about delivering excellence and was designed to allow the participants to show a professional approach to officiating through their improved knowledge and fitness.
Mr Daryl Warner, Deputy FIFA Development Officer and Mr Oliver Camps, President of the Trinidad & Tobago Football Federation both attended the opening ceremony and emphasised the importance of making courageous decisions to the participants as well as welcoming the development programme and the opportunity to further enhance the skills of their referees.
The countries which were represented on the course were Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Suriname.
'Delivering Excellence' focused on the expectations on referees and assistant referees to perform at their very best. Something they should always strive to achieve is to learn from mistakes and build upon successes in order to improve their performances on the field.
The course concentrated on both indoor and outdoor sessions and gave the participants the opportunity to further develop their skills. The indoor sessions concentrated on improving their on-field performances using interactive techniques, video analysis and situation management, whilst the outdoor sessions had a high fitness element together with management and positioning at set play scenarios giving practical advice on how to manage these situations when they occur during the game.
For the referees, the indoor sessions focused on recognising foul challenges and how to deal with them, positioning and movement and how to best maximise their viewing angle to see incidents, how to manage challenges to their authority, managing restarts in play and getting the importance of making the big decisions correctly. For assistant referees, we concentrated on the 'wait and see' technique when indicating an offside offence, covered pre-match preparation and referees instructions and the importance of being in the correct position to judge offences.
The outdoor sessions consisted of speed endurance, agility, sprint/recovery and high and medium intensity programmes. We also included many team games highlighting that training can not only be fun, but beneficial to their fitness programme. The aim was to introduce them to a variety of fitness training programmes which they can take back to their countries and use and pass on to other referee colleagues.
Overall, Ed Stone (Regional Referees Manager for the South East) and I were really pleased with the participant’s commitment to improving their knowledge and their fitness levels. Obviously, with a group of this size, some will progress much quicker than others. It would be interesting to see how they have progressed over the next couple of years and it would be good to probably do a 'where are you now?' in order to see how they have benefited from the course.
Here are some quotes from the course:
“Success breeds success. Every time you go out on the field of play it is another opportunity to advance your career, now it is up to you. Those that work hard will receive their rewards – good luck.”
“If you take something away from these four days that improves your performance, we will be highly delighted.”
“Success means hard work, dedication and a commitment to further enhancing your career. We have been impressed by your positive attitude and commitment over the past four days.”
“95 per cent of refereeing is ‘basic’. Get that right and you will be ready for the challenging five per cent.”
“Training in very hot conditions was physically challenging for everyone and their commitment to complete the training exercises could not be faulted.”
