With restrictions around the world on in-person activities and programmes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CAF Refereeing Department has scheduled series of online courses to support the development of match officials during this period.
Despite the rescheduling of major competitions due to the pandemic, the Refereeing Department and Technical Board of Experts have decided to maintain their schedule for the training programmes approved at the beginning of the year with the option of virtual seminars to monitor the progress of the match officials and prepare them for future competitions.
“The impact of COVID-19 has been huge on all the key actors of the game including match officials. With the current restrictions, it was very important to consider alternative ways to continue with our activities for the referees and assistant referees, and the most applicable option to ensure collective participation was via online.
“The online courses will be intensive just as the regular in-person seminars. The only thing missing will be the usual fitness tests of participants. However, we have deployed a technique with the assistance of the GPS devices and the support of the local instructors to monitor the fitness levels of the participants,” said CAF Refereeing Director, Eddy Maillet.
Five courses have been lined up between 22 August 2020 and 5 October 2020 with each seminar attracting participants between 40 and 60.
- Young Talents Course – 22 to 26 August 2020
- VAR Instructors Technical course – 27 to 31 August 2020
- Elite A (Men) – 31 August to 4 September 2020
- Elite B (Men & Women) – 14 to 18 September 2020
- Elite A (Women) – 1 to 5 October 2020
Topics to be discussed include New Refereeing Concepts, Amendments to the Laws of the Game, Handball Incidents, Video Assistant Referees (VAR), Match & Video Analyses, Offside Rule, Penalty Area Incidents and Tactical Fouls, under the supervision of seasoned instructors namely Celestin Ntagungira (Rwanda), Jerome Damon (South Africa), An Yan Lim Kee Chong (Mauritius), Malang Diedhiou (Senegal), Noumandiez Doue (Cote d’Ivoire), Tempa Ndah (Benin), Hadqa Yahya (Morocco) and Neji Jouini (Tunisia).
CAF
