By Mohamed Korime
A seminar for FIFA World Cup 2018 referees prospects came to a successful conclusion recently in the Florence,Italy.
The course had a specific objective focusing on the latest amendments to the Laws of the Game in preparation for the big stage of football next year.
The participants who included six Africa referees and guest speakers hailed the seminar which had a fresh approach with a variety of topics, activities and approaches.
Most importantly, there was general consensus that the objectives of the seminar were achieved and all that is left is for the referees to prove this on the field of play.
Massimo Busacca,the head of refeering and all involved instructors presented some of key points the aimed at preparing the referees for football’s biggest event.
The African referees present were Grisha Ghead (Egypt), Papa Gasama ( Gambia), Alioum Naint (Cameroon),Janny Sikazwe (Zambia) Mallang Dideua( Senegal) Mahdi Abid Charef (Algeria),Eric Otogo Castine( Gabon).
The seminar had a number of key focuses. These included protecting players and the image of the game, consistency and uniformity, reading the game from a technical and tactical perspective and understanding a variety of player and team mentalities.
In addition, throughout the week match officials reviewed video clips of real match situations and participated in practical training sessions with players, which were filmed to enable participants to receive instant feedback from the instructors.
The seminar was split into focused sessions and covered physical fitness tests, theoretical sessions, video assistant refereeing and practical sessions with local players.
The use of video assistant referees (VARs) was one of the main topics of the seminar and every theoretical session in the classroom was followed by a practical session on the pitch.
All the African referees found the course useful and very important for their performance on the pitch.
