Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Kuala Lumpur: Member Association Referee Instructors participating in a FIFA course in the Malaysian capital have expressed their appreciation for the networking opportunity created during the programme and for the new approaches to educating Asian referees.
A total of 26 participants, including three women, from 11 Member Associations, completed a six-day Technical Instructor Course, one of the two courses held under the FIFA Regional Courses for Referee Instructors for the ASEAN region.
Speaking on behalf of the participants, Malaysian Noor Anuar Abdullah Shani, thanked FIFA for organising the course and the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) for being a good host.
“We really appreciate the network built up among the participants and instructors where there was an opportunity not only for learning, but also for the sharing and exchanging of experiences and information,” he said.
“The course provided the participants with excellent material and methodology. Attending the course for the second time, I found that there had been a tremendous change to the approach of educating referees and lots of new material.”
Goh Ah Chai, Chairman of the FAM Referees Committee, also delivered a message during the course closing, saying: “I’d like to urge the participants to put into practice what they have learnt during the course. Everybody needs to put in an effort to make sure that FIFA’s objectives, ‘For the Game, For the World’, are achieved.”
FIFA Referees Committee member, Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh, had this message for the participants: “You should try to change your mindsets and embrace new methods and new thinking in referee training and evaluation.
“You have to think about understanding football and you must understand how football is played and what players are doing. You have to uplift your thinking ability and improve the ability of your referees to think. You must be confident enough to put forward your ideas, but you also need to be humble and listen to others. You need to be convincing and you need to help your referees convince others.”
The FIFA Regional Course for Referee Instructors works on the philosophy of ‘Teach the Teachers’. It is hoped that by improving the instructors there will be a marked improvement in refereeing quality around the world and a uniformed interpretation of the Laws of the Games.
New methodology and approaches are provided and supported by new teaching material. Technology is also made the most of, with the internet being an important tool. Online portals and service providers are mediums not only for communication, but also for sharing and storing material. A database of teaching material has been created where instructors around the world can source for material and teaching tools.
There were theoretical and practical sessions during the Kuala Lumpur course and the participants had to learn by actually doing what was being promoted. They made classroom presentations and conducted practical sessions on the field. They also had to construct teaching tools using the technology and material that they had been exposed to during the course.
The course was instructed by FIFA Refereeing Development Senior Manager Fernando Tresaco Gracia, Salleh and Farkhad Abdullaev from Uzbekistan.
This course in Kuala Lumpur was the second in a series of four for the different regions of the Asian continent. The course for the East Region was conducted in Chinese Taipei in May. The next event will be in Sri Lanka for the South and Central region while the UAE will host the programme for West Asia.
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