The IFF Referee Committee has sent out the guidelines and the information to the IFF member associations regarding the international referee and observer nominations for 2021-2022.

The international referees and observers are nominated for a two years period. The IFF member associations can propose referees and referee observers to the international level and the IFF Referee Committee selects the referees and observers.  The IFF Central Board then approves the referees and observers based on the RC’s proposal.

Each member association is entitled to propose certain amount of referees and observers. The number of referees and observers depends on the national systems. For example, if the member association has a separate system for referees in the women’s leagues and in the men’s leagues, they are in this case entitled to propose four pairs for both women’s and men’s category on the international level.

If the member association has referees who referee both categories, then they can propose three pairs. The same quota system applies for the referee observers. For this nomination period 2021-2022 there are some changes.

– We decided to remove the technical track from the physical test demands and now the only physical test is the Yo-Yo test, because the RC thought that the Yo-Yo is hard enough to test the real physical condition and the technical track was actually concentrating on movement during the time, when the main physical test was the 1500 m run, says Mr. Carlos Lopez, the chair of the IFF RC.

– We also decided that the member associations don’t have to organise the rule test, because the IFF now has a web based system, where we can organise the rule test for all the proposed referees and observers before they are selected. We will also include questions from the IFF Referee Playbook to the test, he concludes.

The information packages has been sent to all IFF member associations and if there are any questions related to the process, you can be in touch with Mr. Veli Halonen at the IFF office.