Alireza Faghani, who has officiated in the FIFA World Cup, AFC Asian Cup and AFC Champions League, is joined by other coaches, including FIFA Women’s World Cup referee Qin Liang of China PR and AFC Elite Referee Instructors Vladislav Tseytlin of Uzbekistan and Awni Hassouneh of Jordan in the remote education initiative that provides AFC Member Associations (MAs) with exclusive and customisable refereeing resources. Led by Head Coach Ray Olivier, a former English Football League referee and Premier League Assistant Referee, the coaches took part in four training webinars since December 2020 to give them an insight on presenting engaging and informative sessions in the AFC Refereeing STAR Program.
Faghani believes that Asia’s match officials will benefit tremendously from the unique courses in the program which is available virtually to all 47 AFC MAs. “It was great to study and learn how to transfer and share our knowledge and experience to others. Good match officials need to learn from the best coaches and instructors. Every Member Association need to keep their coaches at the same level as others,” he said.
Olivier, who will oversee the AFC Refereeing STAR Program, added: “This Program offers a truly unique package of combining first-class online education for referees and referee instructors development where all aspects of the training are challenging, developmental and inspirational. “Our flexible and adaptable approach to offer online learning support to our Member Associations will continue to grow and will provide the most up-to-date relevant training programs led by experienced referee educators, specialists and coaches.” By combining a pool of trained coaches, including referee instructors as well as retired and active referees, Olivier believes the unique educational topics will raise the standards of match officials in Asia. “These selected and experienced referee coaches have officiated at the highest level of the game and they offer a multitude of training opportunities which will greatly benefit our Member Associations. They have given up a significant amount of their personal time to prepare the teaching materials and I am confident that they will present their topics in a manner that shows they are proud to be a representative and ambassador for the AFC Referees Department. Now we must all work together to nurture the next generation of world class officials, whilst also continuing to develop those referees who will not reach these heights but who are still vital to every Member Association,” Olivier explained.
Among other coaches, the AFC Refereeing STAR Program include recently retired referees Cui Yongmei of China PR and Nagor Amir Bin Noor Mohamed of Malaysia, as well as AFC Referee Fitness Instructor Choi Youngin of Korea Republic.
Source: AFC
