The Football Association of Malawi has urged upcoming referees to work hard and achieve their dreams of becoming international referees.
FAM Executive member, who is also the chairperson of the Referees Standing Committee Rashid Ntelera said this at the Kamuzu Stadium on Saturday morning during the Southern Region’s first quarter referees’ fitness test.
“As FAM, we believe that the future of officiation is in young referees and we need more of them m in the game. If we do not have youths coming in, it means that there will be a gap at some point because this is an age-determined career.
So we are very pleased to have youngsters coming up in the ranks but they need to work hard if they are to go further.
“We are happy that most of the refs have done well in the test. There are others who have failed but we encourage them to not lose hope and keep on training so that they do better in the next test,” said Ntelera.
Out of the 34 male centre referees who came for the test, five have failed while seven out of the 57 assistant referees did not make it.
Yafweramo Nundwe, who was the only female Centre referees also failed the test while Mphatso M’matete is the only female assistant referee who has passed out of six.
M’matete said she is happy to have passed the fitness and has promised to continue working hard.
“I have been looking forward to this day. I am so happy that my dream has come to reality.
“My secret has always been hard work and I will continue training hard because I would like to become one of the Elite female referees like the Bernadettar Kwimbira,” said M’matete.
Among those who have failed the fitness test are Elite referees Evidence Kananji, John Phiri and Happiness Mbandambanda.
The fitness exercise will continue on 29th February at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe for the Central Region while referees from the Northern region will be tested on 1st March at the Mzuzu stadium.
Only those that have passed will be eligible to officiate top flight matches in the 2020 season.
