THE Fiji National Rugby League is hoping to improve the standard of refereeing in the country after organising a referees seminar in Suva today.
The seminar, which will be held at the Vodafone Arena, is expected to see 40 referees and individuals who are interested in refereeing taking part.
Acting refereeing co-ordinator Jone Wesele said everyone would benefit from the seminar.
“The seminar is in conjunction with our partner National Rugby League. We are planning to better our referees —— in controlling the game,” he said.
“It is very important to have such seminar to build the capacity for our local referees to learn more.
“I believe without the help from the NRL, we would not have come this far with the development of referees.
“There has been a tremendous change in our department knowing they (referees) play a key role in the development and improvement of the game.
NRL referee Gavin Badger and NRL merging referee Ben Millington would also be talking to the participants.
“This is not a short term process, it will take three or four years. We have started last year in putting all the resources in it but the referees did not improve greatly.
“We want this to improve in the next four or five years,” NRL development officer Fiji John Jewiss said.
“We have got a lot of good referees here and the best part is we have female referees and we are also looking for more female referees as well. FNRL is putting in a lot of resources as they have got mentors and assessors which never happened before.”
The seminar will start at 9am.
