Referees pose with instructors and observers during the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) National Level 1 Futsal Referees Course.
CEBU now has six Level 1 futsal referees after they joined 19 other referees from all over the Philippines in the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) National Level 1 Futsal Referees Course held from November 28 to December 2.
The 5-day futsal referees course was held at the Don Bosco Technology Center courtesy of Rev. Fr. Honesto G. Geronimo Jr., SDB, Fr. Allan Ross B. Banogon SDB and Maxel Semblante.
The six are Dave Intong, Kerwin Rodriguez, Archival Comendador, Levei Sabella, Janry Acaso and Jasper Gerarman.
Rodriguez and Comendador have a chance to take their refereeing career further after passing the Level 1 fitness test and earning slots to the Member Association referees course, which Cebu might get to host next year.
Should they passed that, they will be eligible to take the FIFA referees course and hopefully become FIFA World Cup referees.
According to Rodney Orale, who heads the referees committee of the Cebu Football Association, it is very advantageous for a referee to be certified as a Level 1.
“After their basic course, they can actually already officiate a futsal game, but only local games. But, once they reach the Level 1 category, they can already officiate professional games,” said Orale.
Instructors for the course were Allan Martinez, PFF referees head; Rey Ritaga, the first Filipino referee to officiate in a FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) Futsal World Cup; and Dr. Peryong Barlas Ph.D, a FIFA instructor.
There were supposed to be a total of 34 coaches from outside Cebu to take part in the course but only 19 of them made it, said Orale.
He added that some of them failed to make their flights and decided not to push through with it.
The course also had a total of nine observers, six coaches from DBTC, two from St. Theresa’s College and one from Talisay.