Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Kuala Lumpur: The latest group of the AFC Project Future Referees will undergo their First Development Course on May 26-31 here in Malaysia’s capital.
Having been selected after a rigorous training and screening exercise in November last year, the 13-strong Batch 2010 are set to chart their well-planned journey with the help of the AFC in becoming the future’s top referees in the continent and the world.
The course instructors are AFC Elite Referee Instructors Ali Al Traifi (KSA) and Masoud Moradi (IRN) while AFC Project Future Referee Manager George Cumming and AFC Referee Department staff Ameez Mohamad, Muhammad Naim Nair and Nurwadinie Abdullah will manage the course.
Project Future is a long term coaching and refereeing development programme initiated by the AFC as an integral part of the vision of AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam to develop football throughout Asia.
AFC Referee Director Yoshimi Ogawa has confidence that Batch 10 will produce good results like their seniors in the already-graduated Batches 2007 and 2008 and Batch 2009 which will graduate end of this year.
“Some members of the earlier batches have already become FIFA referees and we are confident that the referees in Batch 2010 will be just as good.
“We will do all we can to help realise their objectives and ours. The First Development Course with the theme ‘Raising Our Standards’ will be the first step towards this.
“Through this project, we want to help them achieve high standards not erratically but consistently, not just individually but also as a group, and not just as referees but also as excellent people off the field,” he said.
The Batch 2010 members are Peta McCallum (AUS), Koizumi Asaki (JPN), Stephen Lucas (AUS), Kasimov Sherzod (UZB), Shen Yinhao (CHN), Wan Chung Him (HKG), Amir Khosravi (IRN), Payam Heidari (IRN), Ahmad Yacoub Ibrahim (JOR), Ahmed Faisal Qra (JOR), Yusuke Araki (JPN), Phiradet @ Sivakorn Pu-Udom (THA) and Mohammed Khled Alhoish (KSA).