FFAS President, Sen. Faiivae Iuli Alex Godinet, officially opened a FIFA-MA Referee Course with 21 local referees attending the five-day program conducted by FIFA Referee instructor, Tevita Vea.
“My role here today is to officially open this course, but I also want to encourage all of you to take advantage of the knowledge to be gained here,” Faiivae pointed out. “If you don’t take this knowledge and do something useful with it, like passing it on to your clubs so that they can better understand the Laws of the Game, then you are wasting your time here. We don’t want that. I want you to use this to better equip yourself for our association, and for yourself.”
Vea told the participants that they can make a career out of being a referee, but first they must do the hard work themselves. Vea is Tongan and explained how a Tongan referee who used to live in American Samoa now makes a good living as a match official.
“Mr. Folio Moeaki used to live in American Samoa, but he was born in Tonga and when he returned home he joined football (soccer),” Vea explained. “Once he became an assistant referee, he worked hard at it and was able to do a lot of things for his family, buy land and a car, and is now building a big house. All this thanks to his job as a an assistant referee that travels to FIFA and OFC tournaments.
“You can do this too, but the difference is how you look after yourself,” Vea said. “You have to make time to study Laws of the Game, train and work hard to get to a higher level. No one can do this, only you. You have to do this yourself and on your own, taking care of yourself. Don’t forget, I am here to help you all, the FFAS is here to help too with competitions.
“That work starts here, learning as much as you can from this course and then applying it to games,” Vea added.
Vea will be working extensively through the next five days with local referee instructors Sione Mau, Talalelei Faalavaau and Chin Fu Poasa to deliver the Laws of the Game to the participants.
“This is very good timing for our association because our senior men and women’s National Leagues kick off on August 24, while the U-15 boys and girls national leagues start on August 27 and 29,” said FFAS CEO, Tavita Taumua. “For most of our referees this course is a referesher and it is good that the majority of them are our senior referees from 2018.”
The course will have theoretical and practical sessions, with tests and quizzes to measure the understanding of the participants of the most common occurrences in soccer, such as the offside rule and fouls.
A fitness test for the referees is also in the plans, and it is one of the biggest stepping stones to becoming a FIFA/OFC match official, passing this exam.
