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Raise your standard, Warner tells referees

Tuesday, September 12th 2006

FIFA Vice President Jack Warner has called on referees in the region to step up their officiating, and is appealing to FIFA instructors Ken Wallace and Sandra Hunt to go all out in passing on knowledge to the referees taking part in the six-day FIFA Futuro III Referee Instructors' Course, at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, Macoya. Warner was speaking yesterday, at the opening ceremony for the course.

Nineteen participants from Haiti, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Belize, Grenada, St Kitts/Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, US Virgin Islands and T&T are attending the course.

"There is not a single referee of substance here, at the moment," Warner said. "In fact some of our referees have been mercenaries. Most times all they are concerned with is how much they can earn for officiating the game, and they care very little about their performance on the field.

"Refereeing is not a sport. It is a vocation. The person on show is not the referee but it is the players," Warner said, adding that it pained him to see the level of officiating at the CFU Youth Cup, including the final between Mexico and Haiti.

"It pains me when a FIFA referee can give ten yellow cards and two red cards in an under-16 match, a match which was spoilt by the referee."

Both Hunt and Wallace promised to offer all their expertise in the area of refereeing development, stressing that the exercise over the six days would not be an easy one but definitely the kind that would benefit the participants, who should then go back and share the knowledge gained with others in their respective countries.

The four referees from T&T taking part in the course are Robin Murray, Noel Bynoe, John Michael Clarke and George Maynard.