The Cayman Islands referees have
been busy resulting from their outstanding improvement placing second behind Jamaica
out of 16 countries in the region.
Referees Nolan Foster, Kenville
Holder and assistant referee Swason Owen returned from the Netherland
Antilles/Bonaire where they were on duty while representing the Cayman Islands
Referees Association at the highest level.
All three officials had just
completed in the FIFA Referees Assistant Programme administrated by FIFA
Referee Development Officer Ramesh Ramdhan and FIFA Referee Technical
Instructor Paul Prendergast.
Both FIFA officers praised the
local refs association for the tremendous improvement made in all areas
pointing out how well they did in both the theory and the practical.
Prendergast said: “It’s a pleasant
surprise to see how well these officials did the sprints. I commend them for
this calibre of performance and recommend that they continue on this same track
training hard as maintaining their fitness level is of great importance. There
were 12 passes and eleven went over the pass limit resulting in a 74 per cent
pass rate way above our expectation in comparison with the other islands.
“Global uniformity is what this is
geared at. It is clear that hard work was being done in the Cayman Islands. I
am very impressed with the improvement and I have recognised that the work done
here has pushed the Cayman Islands to be considered as one of the best
countries in the region. It is obvious
that the participation of the MA Instructors in the Futuro 111 has borne fruit
to this RAP course.
“I will be back in a year time and
I expect to see more improvement. Nolan Foster is doing a great job and he
needs all the support he can get from the members to maintain this standard.”
Ramdan said: “The Cayman Islands
have shown that effective input and hard work can resultr in massive
improvement in the standard of officiating. The need to increase the referee
population exists and discussions were held with respect to ways of increasing
the amount of referees in the country. We await the results of these efforts
while the existing group of referees continues to do the best they can given
the demands.
“The structure to support
programmes for development of referees is in place, however urgent attention
and action is required to increase the number of younger referees currently
registered, also the number of female referees and assistant referees. The
current referees must be encouraged to continue working on their knowledge and
application of the laws. Practical training sessions and more use of the
teaching for training must be encouraged.”
The refs association is planning to
have one more recruitment drive to find more men, women and youth referees
before the end of the year.
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