Local referee instructor hails recent FIFA seminar in St James

LOCAL referee instructor Mark Sullivan has described the recently concluded five-day FIFA referee’s seminar held at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Montego Bay Sports Complex in St James as “awesome”.

The seminar which was designed to develop and improve top referee instructors using FIFA materials and concepts, attracted representatives from North and South America, the Caribbean, Ireland and Italy.

Sullivan, who has been a referee instructor since 2011, says he’s now eager to share the lessons learnt with his colleagues.

“It was awesome and eye opening. There were new concepts that we had to learn which included theory and practical training as well. However, the big picture was football understanding and how people view the game,” he stated.

Sullivan added that the information will be shared among his peers to assist them in understanding the new concepts that governing body FIFA is showcasing.

“We were also taught how to deal with incidents in the penalty box. This has certainly helped me and the information that was learnt will be conveyed to our local referees and assist them to learn the concepts that FIFA is trying to get across,” Sullivan said.

Javier Santos, referee development officer, who also attended the seminar, shared that it was “productive” as the team took the instructors through classroom and field sessions. He added that he’s hopeful that the new message will assist referees in making the correct decisions on the field.

“We had many sessions in the classroom and also on the field. It was very productive and informative and we had good discussions in the classroom. The idea is for them now to go back to their countries and deliver the message on the methodology of the laws of the game and in the end make the correct decisions on the field,” he stated.

Santos shared that the top performers from the seminar will get a chance to further develop their skills and move on to become Concacaf instructors.

“All instructors will be ranked and then we’ll see who are the best of the lot and then we’ll promote them later to become Concacaf instructors and later on FIFA instructors. This is a good start as we saw how they worked in the classroom and on the field by organising film sessions for the referees, so it was a combination of activities,” Santos revealed.

orane.buchanan@gleanerjm.com