A five-day Young talent Referees Course is currently underway at Mpira Village in Blantyre.

The course, which started on Monday, aims at creating a pool of talented and qualified referees in the country.

FAM Referees’ Development Officer says the course is meant to prepare the participants to officiate elite competitions in the country.

“The participants are under the age of 25 as we want to prepare them for the future. We have three sets of referees in the country namely the Young Referees, the Young Talent Referees and the Elite Referees and this course has brought together the Young Talent Referees to prepare them so that when the Elite Referees retire, we have a pool of other referees to replace them.

“Most of these referees are already officiating in the Regional Premier Leagues and some of them were this year listed to start officiating in the Elite League so we want to equip them with more knowledge on how best they can execute their job as men and women in charge of the matches while at the same time preparing them for the Elite Competitions”,  he said.

The Course has brought together 35 young referees from across the country.

FIFA Instructor Ali Muhammad and Malawian FIFA Referees’ Fitness Instructor Mark Mzengo are facilitating the course with the assistance of some local instructors like Duncan Lengani, Boswell Msangu, Mabvuto Msimuko and Bernadettar Kwimbira.

During the course, the referees are expected to undergo various topics including position and reading, new law changes, the new offside concept, modern refereeing, the handball approach, penalty area incidents as well as management and team work.