A total of 27 referees were involved in the four-day course, which was facilitated by OFC’s FIFA referee development officer Massimo Raveino, along with instructors Neil Poloso and Kader Touati.
The participants hailed from a range of OFC member associations, namely Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga and Vanuatu.
Raveino says the course had three objectives.
“Firstly, to respond to the needs of our OFC competitions, especially the O-League, where we need high-quality officials. Secondly, we need to identify elite referees who have the potential to go on and represent OFC at FIFA tournaments.”
FIFA selected two OFC trios to officiate at this year’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa and Raveino believes that will be the case again for the 2014 tournament in Brazil.
“It is important therefore to select the best four trios who will gain valuable international experience over the next two or three years. From this group of four, FIFA will then select the final two trios who will participate in football’s biggest event.”
The third objective of the course was to improve each referee’s knowledge of the laws of the game, their skills in player management, fitness and mental discipline.
Fitness is certainly an area in which big strides have been made – no OFC official has failed a FIFA pre-tournament fitness test since 2007.
New Zealand referee Mike Hester, who made history in South Africa by becoming the first Kiwi to take charge of a FIFA World Cup game, has been on hand to witness much of that progress.
“Things have really improved over the last few years,” he says.
“When I first started out, there were a number of people who failed the fitness tests but now it seems that everyone passes. I think fitness has become a real strength for Oceania.”
Hester says it is difficult to juggle his work and refereeing commitments and is unsure what the future holds.
“So far my employer has been understanding but it is hard to keep that balance with working and refereeing. And it will become more difficult if I keep going for another World Cup cycle so at this stage I’m just taking it year by year.”