DOHA: The Qatar Football Association (QFA) is preparing to host four major referees seminars - fully backed by world governing body FIFA - in the coming days, it was confirmed yesterday.
These seminars and courses will be supervised by hugely popular Italian referee of his time Pierluigi Collina, Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, and Swiss Massimo Busacca, Executive Director of the Referees’ Department.
Hani Balan, Chairman of the Qatar Referees Committee and Vice-Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, and Naji Juwaini, Executive Director of the Referees Committee, will also be part of the seminars.
The first seminar will be attended by 100 attendees from around the world from January 30 to February 2 at the Inter-Continental Hotel, QFA announced yesterday.
The second forum is for the referees and video assistants who will feature in the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia this summer. The seminar will feature of 37 referees from February 5 to 9.
The third seminar will be held from February 12 to 16 while the fourth and final session of the referees’ will be attended by 100 lecturers from February 19 to 22.
This is the first time that FIFA have sanctioned a series of seminars in one country. In one year, no country has ever organised such a number of referees’ courses.
The FIFA-QFA collaboration on referees was launched four years ago when Qatar hosted training sessions for the referees of the 2014 FIFA World Cup held in Brazil.
FIFA will undertake all financial costs of the four sessions while QFA will provide logistical support.
It is worth noting that QFA hosted two workshops for the referees of the 2018 World Cup and the 2019 World Cup for Women in France.
The first session was held in April 2016.
