NAYPYITAW (9 July 2014) –Myanmar are well on their way in improving their refereeing administration that will contribute to their dream of seeing more officials working in higher-level AFC competitions and becoming FIFA referees.
The AFC Pilot Member Association Project for Referees Administration paid a third visit to the ASEAN nation from 3-4 July, a project which aims to help Member Associations improve refereeing administration.
The delegation from the AFC project consisted of AFC Referee’s Department’s Head of Operations Abdul Razak Anuar and AFC Referees Administrator Shuichiro Hara.
The first day’s meeting was with Myanmar Football Federation’s (MFF) Deputy General Secretary Koko Thein and Referees Committee Chairman and Referees Department Director Tun Hla Aung, CEO of the Myanmar National League (MNL) Jeysing Muthiah and MA Referees Development Officer Win Thiha.
During the second day meeting, the AFC delegation met with MFF’s Deputy General Secretary Koko Thein, Director of National Teams Tin Myint Aung, Director of Media and Communication Soe Moe Kway, Tun Hla Aung and Win Thiha.
The meetings covered the progress made by Myanmar on the recommendations to improve refereeing administration made by the AFC during the second visit in March.
One of the recommendations is to review the structure of the Referees Committee and their roles and the Referees Department staff structure with their job descriptions and Myanmar has planned to review these when the new Executive Committee is formed after their Congress in August.
On the recommended Referees Appointment Committee and collaboration with the MNL in this respect, Myanmar will maintain this Committee for a longer period as recommended by the AFC delegates as the members of the committee need time to know the referees and make better appointments.
The MNL is also currently doing a 10-year strategic plan, which includes refereeing matters. The MNL has consulted the MFF Head of Referees on this matter and the MNL will set aside a development budget to assist MNL referees and to improve their well being.
Myanmar also updated that the recommended online registration of all their 128 referees cannot be done for the time being. The AFC responded by encouraging them to categorise and register the referees accordingly at all levels.
The AFC also advised Myanmar to do a chart and documentation on referees’ promotion or a Referee’s Code for all refereeing matters. The AFC will assist where ever possible on this.
On referee teaching materials, Myanmar said they had translated the FIFA Laws of the Game into Myanmar language. For referees’ match debriefing after the MNL matches, the MNL collaborated well by providing all ‘live’ match recordings to the MFF Referees Department and if there are no ‘live’ matches, they will be recorded using high quality video camera.
This is to assist the Referees Department to improve the technical abilities of the referees.
The MFF will send match officials with potential to be registered as FIFA referees for English classes. This is also to prepare them for AFC recruiting and to be AFC referees.
The AFC also encouraged them to follow the recommendations as suggested by AFC and with proper planning and preparation, MFF referees will benefit from this programme and have more opportunities to be selected as AFC Referees.
