Two-day Technical Instructors workshop concludes

The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) on Sunday concluded a two-day training workshop for Technical Instructors/Referee Development Officers (RDO) at the Ministry of Education’s Music School on Brickdam.

The purpose of the workshop was to enhance the knowledge and skills of prospective Referee Instructors and Assessors by updating them the new materials and information gleaned from our attendance at a recent FUTURO III course in Jamaica. 

Present at the event were GFF President Wayne Forde, GFF Head of Refereeing Department Stanley Lancaster and Member Association (MA) Instructors, Ingram Johnson and Roy McArthur.

In invited comments, Johnson stated: “This workshop is necessary so that the development of football can be enhanced in our Member Associations. From the referees’ point of view in dealing with the modern game the referees have to be up to speed with all the laws and necessary information to manage the game in accordance with the laws of the game. As an Instructor, I was mandated in Jamaica to develop referees to the extent of making sure there is a refereeing team that attends or participates in the World Cup in 2022 in Qatar. So my intention is to try our utmost to instill as much as possible and to guide the referees in order to achieve that particular goal.”  

Meanwhile, Lancaster said: “Ingram who has recently returned from Jamaica, will be enlightening our Instructors on the new amendments and interpretations of the laws of the game and they in turn, just like our previous Fitness Instructor Workshop, will in turn teach the Referees. The prime objective of this workshop is for the MA Instructor to teach the teachers, who are the RDOs/Instructors, who will in turn teach the Referees. Once we would have completed both Technical and Fitness Instructors workshops, we will be targeting the Elite Referees in an upgraded course. We’re projecting to have this done before the start of the Elite League after which we’ll have a national recruitment drive to double or triple the number of officials we currently have.”  

The RDOs are scheduled to conduct training sessions in their respective RMAs in an effort to build capacity in the regions.