NEW DELHI: The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has appointed specialised coaches for the nation’s high referees so as to assist them head in the precise route.
In a chat with ‘AIFF TV’, director of referees Ravishankar J, a former FIFA panel referee himself, termed the programme as “one of the greatest steps” taken by the nationwide federation.
“We thought that since every team has a coach and referees being a team themselves, we thought we should have a coach who would monitor them.
“Usually, the referee assessor (RA) for a sport simply displays the efficiency of the referee or assistant referee in that sport. But now, the coach will consider solely a selected referee’s efficiency from the batch beneath him,” Ravishankar said.
Ravishankar spoke about the intention to invest in this new concept and shared how during ISL games, coaches from the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) Group helped referees, which helped formulate the idea of appointing coaches for referees.
“In the ISL matches, there have been PGMOL coaches coming in from London. They come to do a quantity of matches, submit experiences to the referees’ division, which is shared with the referees.
“It’s a worthwhile concept because they would give video clips and show supporting documents along with advice. There was never criticism and they would always show areas of improvement.”
The earlier experiences have been all the time shared with the coaches who’re in subsequent in line. “The best thing was that the previous reports were shared with the next coach who came to evaluate the referees and as he compares them with the earlier reports, we come to know who is on the upward trend,” Ravishankar defined.
In latest occasions, a quantity of contemporary faces from India have been inducted within the FIFA panel of referees and Ravishankar detailed how the method works, the exhausting work that goes into getting into the panel.
“The number of referees is decided by FIFA taking many factors into consideration and for India. “It is a quota of six referees and eight assistant referees in males’s soccer, and two girls referees and two girls assistant referees. So, a complete of 14 of them.”
Referees are also judged on the basis of their performances in local tournaments.
“While health and expertise are paramount, in the previous couple of years, now we have additionally considered an analysis of the referee’s efficiency within the home matches — how his or her contribution is and what the efforts are,” Ravishankar mentioned.
—PTI

Press Trust of India