Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Kuala Lumpur: AFC Futsal Referee Instructors are ready to empower more officials this year after the excellent performance of Asian referees in the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Thailand.
Eight referees from Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Australia, Korea Republic, Japan, Uzbekistan, Iran and China were in action during the championship, with some of them appearing up to the third-place play-off, which was a source of pride for the instructors as well as the AFC.
This time round, the trainers are looking forward to more achievements by their ‘students’, who will put their knowledge, skills, experience, and toughness to the test come crunch time – the 2013 Futsal Club Championship qualifiers in April and finals from August to September as well as the 2014 AFC Futsal Championship qualifiers in December.
Eleven AFC Futsal Referee Instructors attended their four-day course in Kuala Lumpur which was closed on Tuesday by AFC Deputy General Secretary Hasan Al-Sabah.
Instructor from Japan Hirano Shinichi is looking forward to making use of the new knowledge he has gained in the course to train referees to be better.
“The course was excellent and the course instructors were outstanding. I’m looking forward to train more referees,” he told The-AFC.com.
“There will be two major training sessions in Japan this year and I will definitely make use of what I learned here to benefit the referees.”
Saminathen Marimuthu of Malaysia feels the course this year has been different from past years because of the learning opportunities from the FIFA Futsal World Cup last year.
“I think this year’s sessions were the best because there was new info and new competitions rules and regulations in futsal,” he said. “The instructors have shared with us some latest developments also in the laws of the game.
“I will make sure these will get passed to the referees. It’s all up to us now the instructors to help our referees excel even more in the future.”