Nomination of FIFA Match Officials 2011

FA of Maldives has once again nominated the following for FIFA 2011 Match Officials:
1. Ali Saleem - Referee
2. Ali Adil - Referee
1. Ahmed Ameez - Assistant Referee
2. Ahmed Aslam - Assistant Referee
3. Mohamed Aneel - Assistant Referee
4. Mohamed Fareed - Assistant Referee
5. Ibrahim Thaufeeq - Assistant Referee
All match officials have been ranked based on their overall performance in the Dhivehi League. There are also young referee who have better performance than the existing match officials. The Referees Committee (RefCom) felt that the potential referee should be given more exposure before he is nominated. Existing FIFA match official must maintain a ranking above 50% of the referees to be nominated again. Next year, the Referees Committee (based on FIFA guidelines) have decided that other eligible referees with better performance will be registered instead if the existing match official fall below the 50% level.
Other rules on the eligibility or referees being nominated are: must officiate at the highest level matches in the country, passed the appropriate FIFA's physical fitness test, medical test, not holding any official function as FA Exco, General secretary or member of RefCom or any football club, not indiscipline or for any other justifiable reason. Member Associations may request the FIFA Referees Committee in writing to suspend or remove a referee from the list for any justifiable reason. FIFA Referees Committee's decision is final and is not subjected to appeal.
Any match officials not registered for the year may be re-registered if his performance is still considered by the FA RefCom as excellent and is not above 45 years of age. Referees who choose to be indiscipline may face the possibility of not being registered or removed. The FA has the right to nominate an existing AR to the referee's list but he has to be removed from the list for one year. Good luck to all referees of Maldives in the remaining matches of the Dhivehi League (as from 1 September 2010).

Changes to Improve on Commitment and Performance

Some of the changes that will be implemented by the Referees Department in 2011 to check on the commitment and performance of the referees. This is based on the procedures of re-registration and recording of performance by AFC and FIFA. Thus, this will also facilitate the department to have a continuous check on the referee's performance.

Referees performances in the Dhivehi League will be tabulated their marks from 1 September 2010 till 31 August 2011. This will be carried out every year in line with AFC and FIFA. So the performance of the referees in the remaining months (September, October, November and December) of 2010 will be taken into consideration in the re-registration and registration of FIFA Match Officials for 2011.

This year all nomination by the Referees Committee for the FIFA Match Officials has to be approved by the FAM Executive Committee (as in FIFA Statute). So match official who continuously infringes the rules and regulation of FAM will taken disciplinary action including taking off from the FIFA list. The character, discipline, action, attitude and performance is often in the eyes of the public. So the referee has to always maintain a good personality and character. Although FAM has approved the re-registration of all the FIFA Match Officials their performance and discipline will also be monitored throughout the seasons. Referees turning down matches at the last minutes, not turning up for matches or other unaccepted reasons will be put on hold their appointment by AFC or FIFA.

FIFA referees and Assistant Referees (AR) must maintain their ranking in term of performance and must not be below 50% of the total number of referees being put as referees or assistant referees in the Dhivehi league. For example, if there are 10 referees doing the Dhivehi League, the FIFA referees and AR must maintain his ranking above raking 5 to be considered for nomination. So if there are other referees whose performance are better, then they should also be nominated together with the existing referees or assistant referees. Performance should be the main factor over age in term of excellence in refereeing.

Appointments will be made at least for a period of two weeks and be emailed to all referees. Thus will ensure that all referees have email and open their email too. Calling by telephone will be reduced or only for other competitions. Weekly training to improve on physical fitness, refereeing skills and to deliberate on refereeing problems faced. Senior referees beside the instructors will be used to handled these matter. This will of course guide and assist them to be future instructors or at least to know their own performance better.

FAM Best Service Referee Award will still be given to three referees who had devoted most of their time to FAM in accepting appointment for matches. The total number of matches, number of matches as referees and marks of their performances and also their discipline will be considered in picking the right recipients.

Attendance in weekly training or meetings and also the Annual Preparatory Seminar will be made compulsory. If effort is made to tailor for the improvement of referee is not seen as important by any referee then FAM do not need to consider the referee (if any) for any appointment at all.

These actions will be a booster to younger referees to be more disciplined, to put in effort to improve themselves in their refereeing skills and also attitude so that they will be Maldives' future international referees or excellent referees in the Dhivehi Leagues.

Eid Mubarak

Eid Mubarak to you all who are close follower of Maldivesref blog. Back in Malaysia with family. InshaAllah will be performing by Hajj this year with my wife. Will be praying for the goodness of all my friends in Maldives. Since I will be away for a while, all decisions pertaining to refereeing matters will be decided by the Referees Committee and Ahmed Abeer Ismail will resume all my task in the Referees Department. He may choose to make references to me if neccessary. I hope that all the referees will observe the procedures set in the FAM Referees Manual. I sincerely hope that no referee will be ambitious enough to deviate away from the main stream to get into trouble. Good luck and once again, Eid Mubarak to you and family.

Referees Instructor - To be or Not to be

Referees Instructor or FIFA termed it as Technical Instructor is a thankless job in the development of referees. If one feel that it is a way to make money then he/she has got the wrong concept. The income from giving courses will not be able to get back the investment that he/she has to put in like buying a laptop, maybe a multimedia projector, magnetic board, laser pointer and many other gadgets 9if you want to be different or special one from others).
Before one feel that he/she wants to be one, he/she has to evaluate the qualities that an instructor needs to possess in order to want to be one. Even when he/she is still an active, there should be an urge to wanting to teach, to guide, to assist or to show others how to be better in the skill of refereeing. Always wanting to read and understand the laws of the Game better, going over and over again to understand it better, to explain and convince others or testing himself with quizzes on the laws of the Game. Keeping himself/herself updated with the latest amendments to the laws even before getting it through the mail by browsing FIFA or other relevant sites for it. When refereeing, always critical of one's performance, self-evaluation and self-analysis is his/her normal practice after every match. Always wanting to do better in each and every performance. Opened to criticism or opinion by others and accepting good points from others to improve further (If he/she cannot accept other's criticism, will he/she be able to give it to others or feel that others will accept his/hers).
Possessed the passion of browsing or looking other aspects related to the development of one's refereeing skills and performance, like fitness training, weight training, psychological practices, nutrition and pre-game nutrition, sports injuries and remedy or recovery methodology, training equipments and facilities, football coaching principles and strategy in play and many other related aspects of football to enrich one's knowledge and experiences.
Training the trainers is a normal practice to recruit new instructor. Some can be trained or moulded into good instructors but some can and will not be a good one as the urge or the eagerness to improve is not possessed. This is due to the individual objectives or aims to be an instructor.
Personal characters and appearance is one aspect that will bring out the flare of a "different" , "special" or "an excellent" instructor. Individual talking skill, persuading or marketing skills, instructional delivery skill, technical skill with multimedia facilities, ability in making or producing his/her own teaching or instructional material are among the personal aspect that one needs to possess to be an excellent, if not a better instructor. Natural traits of the ability or the wanting the see the best in others, the positive aspects or traits of others, the strength and potentials of others will make one an acceptable instructor rather that the one who always sees the negative points of others, always critical or finding the faults of others or even having a negative concept of everything which makes a bad one.
Looking at all the aspect highlighted above, one can now evaluate if one can be one of the future instructor to be. If interested he/she can starts to put in effort to change his/hers perspective to everythings besides trying to gain all the skills, knowledge and approaches in instructional skills to perform better as a referee and later on as an instructor.

Fourth Official - New Amendment 2010/2011

THE FOURTH OFFICIAL
He assist the referee to control the match in accordance with the laws of the Game. The referee, however, retains the authority to decide on all points connected with play.

In the first incident, both the Referee and the Assistant Referee did not see not see the defender handling the ball. The fourth official was in a better position to see and advised the referee. A penalty was given for the offence.

In the second offence, the Referee viewed it from his position as a normal foul but from the vision of the fourth official it is a reckless foul that merits a yellow card. So the player was given a yellow card.

The Referee reserves the right to make the final decision.