THE new crop of officials who completed the Guyana Football Federation (GFF)-sponsored East Bank Football Association’s (EBFA) Referees Training Programme last Sunday with a pass rate of 96%, commenced their technical training session on Tuesday at the Timehri Red Ground.

Fourteen officials attended the programme and wrote the examinations following the 3-day event which was facilitated by GFF’s referee instructors Stanley Lancaster and Ingram Johnson.

Tuesday afternoon’s session was conducted by Member Association’s technical instructors Roy McArthur and Lancaster. McArthur focused on basic line movements (shuttling, sideward movements, positioning of the flag while moving on the line) of the assistant referee now known as the other Match Official.

Lancaster worked on positioning and movements of a referee while the basic mechanics of offside and being in line, foul, goal, corner kicks, basic positioning and movements as a central referee also formed part of the session, which would continue today, next Tuesday and Thursday.

The officials are being prepared to make their on-field debuts at the EBFA/Juicy Juice Under-13 competition set to kick off next weekend.
Lancaster commented on Tuesday’s session: “The feedback from the officials is that they are very excited and impressed with progress so far and are looking forward to learning more about refereeing and even going on to a higher level in time.

“It’s a new experience for them having been around as coaches and other officials but now are exposed to the relevant referees training in their quest of pursuing a new career.”
It was also noted that the sky is the limit for the new officials as every effort would be made to ensure that they are exposed to the best training with the view of one day making the FIFA List.

This is the first in a series of prorgammes being undertaken by the GFF as part of its national recruitment drive aimed at tripling the number of officials available across Guyana.