Referees ● Apr 10, 2015
FIFA Head of Refereeing lauds Singapore’s progress
Written By: Kenneth Ho
SINGAPORE, 10 APRIL 2015: FIFA’s Head of Refereeing Massimo Busacca was full of praise for the nation’s contributions to the officiating of the game when he stopped over in Singapore for a brief visit on 2 April.
Busacca was in transit back to Switzerland after conducting a seminar in Malaysia, when he decided to hold an impromptu workshop with local referees at the Jalan Besar Stadium.
There, Busacca offered his congratulations to referees Abirami Naidu and Muhammad Taqi – the duo have been selected to officiate at the 2015 Women’s World Cup and Under-20 World Cup respectively in the coming months – and said that this was proof of Singapore’s ability to develop quality referees.
“If you see two referees coming to the next World Cup – one the Women’s and the other the Under-20 in New Zealand – from a country like Singapore, which is not a big country, it means that they are doing something good,” Busacca said.
Busacca was given a presentation of what Singapore’s refereeing department has in mind and admitted he was impressed by what he saw.
“When I saw their presentation of the project, I was impressed. When you want to do something you need a project, and the project presented by the Head of the Referees Department was very good,” Busacca said.
“Tonight I can conclude they want to do it, I saw a group of members who want to do it.”
The session saw Busacca sharing his experience with those in attendance, and he hoped that ultimately the biggest takeaway for them was the need to understand the laws of the game and make decisions within a split second.
“One of the most important components is to have referees with knowledge and understanding of football to be able to read the game and know what is really going on,” he concluded.
