DILI (3 March 2015) – Seven women have created history by becoming the first AFC Women Futsal Referees.
The trailblazing women have completed a two-day orientation programme before joining a four-day AFC Futsal Referees which started on Monday, an annual refresher course which makes up Part 3 of the AFC Refereeing Seminar 2015.
Altogether, 33 referees are taking part in the main course which prepares referees who will be officiating in AFC and other international futsal tournaments.
“It’s the first time we have women futsal referees in our seminar. This is a step forward and AFC now have all the different categories of referees listed in its panel,” said Yoshimi Ogawa, Director of the AFC Referees Department.
Two futsal referees and one futsal referee instructor from UEFA are also involved in the course as part of the exchange programme between the AFC and UEFA which began in 2009.
“The exchange programme has been very beneficial to the AFC and has helped raise the level of futsal refereeing in Asia,” Ogawa said to www.the-afc.com. “I hope that this will be extended to competitions where referees and instructors from AFC can probably get the opportunity to learn from the experience of being involved in the tournaments in Europe.”
The course is conducted by FIFA Futsal Referee Instructors Yasuhiro Matsuzaki (Japan), Pedro Galan (Spain), guest instructor from UEFA Andrea Lastrucci (Italy) and FIFA Referee Fitness Instructor C. Ravichandran (Malaysia).
As in all referee courses, the content includes theoretical and practical sessions which touch on the technical area of refereeing and latest developments as well as updates in the futsal laws of the game and their interpretation.
The participants also undergo a fitness test and quizzes during the course which ends March 5.
