Busy week for Referees

The Gibraltar FA Refereeing Dept have organised two Referee Educational Programme events over the past seven days.

On 5th March Referees attended a workshop spearheaded by the Gibraltar FA's Referee Manager Adrian Bacarisa and UEFA Referee Consultant Alan Snoddy. Local referees were addressed on control and confrontational situations analysing video clips from both UEFA and domestic competitions.

A 2nd Referee Beginners’ Course was also successfully held with four more young individuals qualifying as referees and becoming the latest additions to the Gibraltar FA's pool of Grassroots Referees.

Two of the new young referees were delighted at completing the course, commenting:

Bilal Douah – 16 years old

“The Referee Beginners’ Course is great sand has helped me understand the game more as I am a football player as well. I now know the rules and how it would feel for me as a referee.”

Daniel Todoran – 15 years old

“I’ve really enjoyed this course as I realised that a career as Referee would be very interesting and enjoyable. The course itself was detailed and I learnt many new concepts and rules that I didn’t know, such as the decision taken when an own goal is scored form a goal kick, corner kick, indirect free kick and throw-in.”

Referee Manager Adrian Bacarisa was delighted at the outcome of the week:

“We continue to provide very good development and support schemes to our referees and assistant referees across all football categories. The workshop on the 12th March delivered our elite match officials with high quality learning material creating good discussion among participants. Our grassroots referees also attended this workshop affording them opportunities to mix with our elite match officials and learn from experiences.

In the case of newly qualified referees we now have sixteen referees under the age of 17. They are at the moment operational at grassroots level at under 10 level. I take once again the opportunity to ask coaches and parents to be supportive towards our very young referees by showing respect. We count on them to be future elite referees. With the help of all involved in football we will ensure we have good aspiring young referees coming through the ranks.” - GFA