| Fadhil Yunus |
BRUNEI Darussalam have been pushing its efforts towards producing an elite referee in the hopes of representation at an international stage mainly international or club level tournaments.
Currently, there is no recognised elite Bruneian referee or assistant referee in major Asian Football Confederation (AFC) tournaments.
Technical FIFA Instructor Ali Ahmed Al Traifi has challenged the country’s pool of referees to work towards taking charge of a football match at the highest level.
“The key word for them is to work hard. We don’t believe in the word impossible. And they don’t have to believe in the word impossible,” said Al Traifi in an interview with the Bulletin during a certificate presentation ceremony of the FIFA MA Refereeing Course at NFABD House.
“They need to believe in everything is possible if they work for it. They need to improve their fitness, their knowledge and their technical understanding of the Laws of the Game,” the FIFA instructor added.
“This is nothing difficult if they work hard for that. But they need to work and think as a professional.”
The short refereeing course commenced with the explanation of the amendments of the Laws of the Game though it is seen as difficult for the referees with Al Traifi adding that they can abide correctly in their matches.
The referees, who have completed the five-day course, can now apply their knowledge and understanding that they gained from the amendments of the Laws of the Game in the Brunei DST Premier and Super League matches next season.
The local course participants as well as the two FIFA instructors in a group picture. – FADHIL YUNUS
Al Traifi added that they usually focus on Law 11 and Law 12 whereby these two are the most important laws of the game.
“Teamwork is the key for the modern refereeing today. They cannot officiate the match alone. They need to think as a team.”
He continued that refereeing-related errors cannot be avoided but the most important thing is to minimise crucial errors.
“We will never have a match without mistakes. Our target is always to minimise the mistakes and not to commit crucial mistakes.
“Whether in three or five years, we will continue having mistakes. But we’ll always try to minimise the mistakes in the matches and they can do that by practice more, by reading more, by updating themselves in everything new and by updating the knowledge of the game and analyse more clips,” he said.
Al Traifi advised the committee and the department to conduct more courses both theory and practically preferably twice in a month adding that one or two courses in a year is not sufficient.
“Depending on AFC and FIFA to conduct one or two courses in a year is not enough. The local instructors have very good knowledge and understanding and they can use them”, he concluded.
Meanwhile, Amdillah bin Zainuddin, one of the participants of the course, said that they will apply what they learnt with regards to the amendments of the Laws of the Game in the national leagues next season.
“First of all, the course is important for us to be updated on the amendments of the Laws of the Game because the regulations will be changed starting in effect June 1, 2016.
“There are many big changes that we will apply in the national leagues next season in 2017,” the local participant said.
He added that coaches and players must also be educated in the changes on the amendments of the Laws of the Game.
Amdillah believes fitness is an important aspect of refereeing because the benefits included being able to get close to the play whereby their call could not be debated.
“What we do in the field must be in accordance with the regulations in the book. There must be a post-mortem to study and we have to practice both theory and practical.
“Video analysis is important and reading the materials alone will not be enough,” he concluded.
The guest of honour at the event was Awang Zulkifli bin Haji Duraman, NFABD’s Executive Committee member, who also presented certificates of participation to the participants.
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