Special Olympics India have together with the IFF arranged a webinar for referees. This was conducted over two sessions by the IFF referee observer Ronny Brännbacka.
– I’m pleased, the participants were very interactive and willingly discussed different topics on refereeing, which was important, Ronny Brännbacka said.
The Indian Floorball Federation also attended the webinar. The aim of the webinar was not to teach the rules, but concentrated more on how to act as a referee.
Floorball in India is growing and within Special Olympics they have now over 7000 players. A webinar during the covid-19, was a good solution to educate and inspire further development.
Victor Vaz, who is Sports Director for Special Olympics and the person behind the idea of the webinars, was also very pleased:
– The referees training webinar is a welcome step for S.O.Bharat and this webinar will help us to build up a team of referees. With the support of Special Olympics Asia Pacific and the IFF we will accomplish our objectives. We are thankful to Ronny Brännbacka, Steen Houman and Coen van Putten for organising this webinar.
The IFF and Special Olympics signed a partnership in 2012 in order to promote floorball in both organisations, and the work continues.
– I was very pleased with the initiative to deliver a technical officiating webinar after a number of coach development programmes. Training our coaches is important, but training technical officials is equally important if we want to offer quality competition experiences for our athletes. I look forward to continue to work with the IFF to strengthen our regional floorball workforce, Coen van Putten, the Sports Director for Special Olympics Asia Pacific, comments.
Steen Houman, who is chair at the floorball sport resource team within Special Olympics as well as an IFF Central Board member concludes:
– This has been a fruitful partnership for both organisations and with the support from IFF floorball is now played in 56 Special Olympics countries. The work to spread floorball in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Middle East continues, so that within a few years floorball will be played in at least 100 countries within Special Olympics.
For more information about Indian Floorball Federation visit www.facebook.com/IndianFloorballFederation and for more information about Special Olympics visit www.specialolympics.org
