Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kuala Lumpur: AFC Referees Director Yoshimi Ogawa has urged the participants of the AFC Elite Futsal Referee Instructors’ Course which closed here Wednesday to take on bigger roles in the future by becoming FIFA and AFC Futsal Referee Instructors.
Ogawa has said that the pool of futsal referee instructors who can work both for AFC and FIFA is small and therefore an opportunity lies here for the 10 participants to make more contributions to the game.
“I expect you someday to take over the jobs of your instructors in this course you just finished today. You have been learning from these instructors who are among the best in FIFA and AFC, and there are not many of them around.
“AFC needs to build its pool of instructors and the only people who can take up this challenge of filling the voids are you. So, I would like to urge you to work hard to improve yourself again and again.
"Once you have qualified to teach at both AFC and FIFA levels, your contribution to both organisations will be immense, not to mention the benefits you bring to your member associations,” encouraged Ogawa.
Ogawa was speaking while closing the three-day course held as part of the AFC Elite Education Seminar 2011’s programme.
Also present during the closing ceremony were AFC Futsal Director Ali Targholizade and the course trainers, FIFA and AFC Futsal Referee Instructors Yasuhiro Matsuzaki (Japan) and Pedro Galan Nieto (Spain) as well as guest instructor from UEFA Ivan Novak (Croatia).
Meanwhile, Targholizade is convinced that refereeing is one of the most important elements of the game that needs developing.
He said to the participants: “We have been since recently putting elements, for example, the coaching train-the-trainers courses, to develop futsal.
“This course you just finished is one of the elements needed for futsal refereeing. This game has great potential for going far in this continent and you are part of the elements to make Asia the giant in futsal,” said the Iranian Targholizadeh.
The course participants were Alexander Tamplin (Australia), Li Zhizhong (China), Andy Wong (Hong Kong), Seyed Mousavi (Iran), Abdolkarim Sistaninejad (Iran), Shinichi Hirano (Japan), Kazuya Isokawa (Japan), Adel Al Shatti (Kuwait), Badrul Hisham Kalam (Malaysia) and Saminathen Marimuthu (Malaysia).