Courtesy: The AFC.com



Asian Cup ref appointment procedure

Monday, 22 November 2010

Kuala Lumpur: The AFC Referees Committee met on Monday under the chairmanship of AFC Vice-President Yousuf Yaqoob Al Serkal here at AFC House and approved the appointment procedure of referees for the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011™ (January 7-29).

To ensure complete neutrality in the appointment of referees, those in charge of the referee appointments for the continental showcase will be drawn from countries other than the 16 participating countries/teams.

The draft appointment will be prepared by a referee instructor/assessor and this will be checked and finalised by two members of the AFC Referees Committee who will then forward the final appointment to the AFC Tournament Director.

At the outset, Chairman Al Serkal thanked AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam for his keen interest in promoting Asian refereeing.

“This committee has done an excellent job and my thanks goes to each and every one of you, especially the AFC President,” said Al Serkal. “I also want to congratulate the referees of Asia for a very successful year, highlighted by the performance of our referees in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”

The committee also decided to further boost refereeing in the continent by approving the formation of a Referees Development Group for a progressive system of referee development.

Under this two-year programme, upto 20 referees of 35 years of age or less will be selected and their performances monitored by AFC Elite Instructors on a regional basis. Based on their on-pitch performances, the referees shall be promoted to serve as Elite Referees and given the opportunity to officiate at the AFC U-16 and U-19 Championship qualifiers and other appropriate tournaments.

The committee also okayed proposed recruitments to the AFC Panel of Elite Refereeing Officials for 2011. Under this, 10 new referees (total 79; existing 69), 21 new assistant referees ( total 136; existing 115), 17 new fourth officials (total 30; existing 17), two new futsal referees (total 19; existing 17), five new referee instructors (total 34; existing 29), 10 new referees assessors (total 63; existing 53), eight new referee recruiters (total 32; existing 24), one new futsal referee instructor (total 11; existing 10), and one new referee fitness instructor (total 8; existing 7) will be recruited.

The additional assistant referees’ experiment at the AFC President’s Cup 2010 final stage for three matches was also deliberated and met with approval.

The excellent performance of Project Future referees drew appreciation from the members as they learnt that six out of 20 graduates of the 2007 batch were now FIFA referees.

The members were informed that referee Yuichi Nishimura of Japan had been appointed to officiate in the FIFA Club World Cup in the UAE from December 8-18, 2010. The refereeing trio is completed by assistant referees are Toru Sagara and Nagi Toshiyuki, both of Japan.

All decisions of the AFC Referees Committee need to be approved by the AFC Executive Committee, which meets on Wednesday, to take effect.


Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com