MFA Refereeing Centre holds pre-season seminar in Germany

● 43 elite match officials take part in five-day event in Duisburg

The Malta FA Refereeing Centre has just organised its annual preseason seminar for Elite Match Officials in Duisburg, Germany.

The seminar, spread over five days and held under the auspices of FIFA and UEFA, took place at the Sportschule Wedau. A total of 43 match officials and nine administrators, led by Director of Refereeing Kevin Azzopardi and Assistant Directors Andre Arciola and Adrian Azzopardi, participated in this seminar.

The schedule featured both theoretical and practical sessions together with assessments related to the Laws of the Game.

The match officials also underwent the FIFA Fitness Test under the supervision of fitness coaches Ronald Zammit and Clayton Pisani.

The keynote speaker during this seminar was FIFA Instructor Juan Antonio Fernandez Marin who also occupies the post of ViceChairman of the Referees’ Committee within the Greek Football Federation.

Six of the Maltese match officials were also appointed to officiate two friendly matches which doubled up as a match observation exercise for the entire group.

Ishmael Barbara, Dusan Petrovic and Mark Ciantar controlled the match between Poll vs Rondorf while Alex Johnson, Darko Stankovic and James Muscat took charge of the match between two youth Bundesliga sides, FC Kaiserslautern and FC Hennef.

Charles Agius, the Malta FA Referees’ Committee Vice-Chairman, and Elite Unit members Alexander Arena, Marco Borg and Charles Micallef delivered presentations on different technical aspects during the seminar.