Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kuala Lumpur: The latest group of AFC Project Future Referees, Batch 2015, have started their First Development Course in the Malaysian capital.
Seven men and three women from nine AFC Member Associations are attending the six-day course which kicked off on Thursday.
Director of the AFC Referees Department, Shamsul Maidin, while speaking at the course opening, congratulated the participants on their success of being selected to be part of the programme.
“You should use this golden opportunity to not only soak in the knowledge from the top-level instructors handling the course but also to share the knowledge with those back home. Many graduates of the AFC Project Future Referees programme have become FIFA referees and some have already gone on to become AFC Referees. I hope you’ll do your best and reap as many benefits as you can from this course.”
The 10 participants were chosen to take part in the coveted two-year AFC Project Future Referees programme out of 17 candidates participating in a selection course which took place in November last year.
The 17 were shortlisted from 110 young men’s and women’s referees from across Asia who participated in AFC U-14 Regional Festivals of Football and AFC U-14 Girls’ Regional Championships last year.
The unique AFC young referees development programme encompasses theoretical and practical sessions plus a fitness test and a mini tournament.
The participants will not only be assessed and provided high-level input to hone their refereeing skills but also coached on the finer aspects of character building to develop and groom them to become the AFC’s future top referees.
Feedback on their performances in the course will later be provided to the respective Member Associations to further monitor and follow up on their development in their own countries.
The course, appropriately themed “Setting New Targets”, the first in a series of four courses, is being conducted by FIFA/AFC Referee Instructors Ishiyama Noboru (Japan) and AFC Referee Instructor Srinivasan Suresh (India). FIFA/AFC Referee Fitness Instructor C. Ravichandran (Malaysia) will conduct a fitness test and speak to the participants on developing their fitness .
The course will be followed by the Second Development Course in Male’, Maldives in the later part of the year. Then, the Third Development Course will be held in Fukuoka, Japan at the Sanix Cup International Youth Football tournament the following year. The two-year programme concludes with the Final Development Course in Kuala Lumpur towards the end of their second year of training.
Photo: AFC