Swansea Referees' Society

Earlier this year, the FAW launched the Referee Support website to support ongoing referee education.

The website address is Referee.Wales – Referee Support Site (refereeing.wales)

The letter below from John Bryant (FAW Referee Recruitment & Retention Officer) gives some background to the site

“Dear Referee,
For many years it has been the ambition of the FAW refereeing department to create a standardised
approach to refereeing education across all levels of refereeing in Wales.

We have been working within the FAW refereeing department to find ways to make this happen and I am
delighted to be in a position to announce that we have agreed a sponsorship deal with Schroder’s Personal
Wealth to become our official referee education partner. The sponsorship deal will benefit referee
education and training initiatives, as well as our new and exciting education platform.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship from our referee education partners, we have been able to create an
online education platform to achieve our aims and objectives to improve refereeing throughout Wales, –
irrelevant of level and ability. To ensure there is a consistent and fair approach to national referee
development, we have ensured that every comet registered match official will have have the ability to
utilise this platform, meaning that no matter where you reside within Wales, you have the same
opportunities for self-development.

Upon logging in to the platform, you will be greeted by our news page. This is where all the latest
refereeing news from the FAW will be posted along with news posted by the Area Associations. You will
simply need to select the tabs on the left-hand side to show which news you would like to see. As with all
new things, we aim to keep these regularly updated so if you have your own news story that you think
would be important information to add to the news section, then please send these to your Area
Association referees’ officers, or if you are an elite match official please send to myself (John Bryant –
jbryant@faw.co.uk).

After viewing the news, you will have two further functions to choose from “On the pitch” and “Off the
pitch”. Let’s start with “On the pitch”- Under this category you will see three options. Firstly, refresher
courses – Every year you will be able to re-take the annual referees’ course which all new referees have to
undertake to form part of their qualification. This has been added to enable you to refresh your laws of
the game knowledge annually, as well as keeping on top of any new advice that we offer new referees.
Secondly, You are the ref – In this section there is weekly engagement that all referees can interact with.
Every week, clips, mostly from the Welsh pyramid will be uploaded and you will be given the opportunity
to watch the clips individually before deciding what the correct refereeing outcome is through the format
of a poll. Upon selecting your answers on the poll, you will immediately find out if your decision was
correct, as well as an in-depth explanation as to why the correct answers is the correct one.

Finally, on this section is Videos – In this section there is a library of all clips covering various topics. Upon the weekly poll
expiring and new clips added, the old clips will be moved into this section, so if you do happen to miss a
week’s poll, you will still be able to view the clips and the correct answers. Over time, this section will be
filled with content allowing you to visit at any time to refresh your knowledge on the certain clip topics.
“Off the pitch” is a larger section which contains varying pages of information and interaction.

Thedownloads section is an area of the website where all nutrition and training plans will be uploaded, along
with any other relevant downloadable content. You will notice the training plans have been adapted to be
inclusive of everyone’s varying fitness levels, thus giving you the chance to follow a referee related training
plan irrespective of your current fitness levels. Next up is “Webinars”. In this section the FAW will be
hosting a few webinars per year in association with our partners so you can take advantage of listening
and engaging with some industry leading experts. Also, as we can all benefit from referee development in
wales, it is also encouraged to share any webinars that the area associations host as well as any societies
in which Welsh referees can benefit from. On to the ‘Laws of the game quiz’- This has been set up in a
semi interactive way whereby you can read the question and once you decide an answer in your mind, you
can click the reveal button to show the answer..

Our sponsors section is a page which showcases all thebenefits that are available to us from our sponsors. Without them this whole project would not have been
possible.

To finish, we have an important links page as well as a contact page. Important links contains all
relevant links to match officials across Wales and the contact us page will be another way of
communicating any questions you may have with either myself or your Area Association referees officer.
This platform will be a game changer for referee education in Wales but it will only be of benefit if you
regularly visit and interact, so I urge you when this is launched, to make it your regular stop.

To register and log in, please click on the hyper link below and complete the registration process:
https://www.refereeing.wales/registration-page/”
John Bryant

The Cymru Football app takes the match data entered into the Comet app by clubs, referees and competition managers and makes it available to members of the public – giving them the opportunity to follow all levels of Welsh football live.

The app is free to download from the Apple and Google Play stores and can be used on a smartphone or tablet.

It includes live match details, including goal scorers, yellow and red cards and substitutions for every match recorded on COMET, as well as player and team statistics and league tables.

It will also allow you to select your favourite player, team, match or competition and receive a notification whenever a goal, substitution or card is recorded on Comet

A User Guide for the App is available via the link below:

Cymru_Football_App_User_Guide

Have you ever thought of becoming a referee?

You could find yourself officiating in Junior & Senior League finals or even in front of 30,000 enthusistic fans at the PSV Eindhoven stadium (like Society member, Ceri Williams, above)

If you’re interested but been unsure where to go, then visit the FAW’s own website https://becomearef.wales

The training is provided online so you can learn at your own pace.  Once qualified, joining the Referees’ Society will introduce you to other referees who can support and mentor you as you gain experience.

After what seems like an eternity, the Society is delighted to announce that our next meeting – which will be an AGM for 2020 and 2021 – will be held at the Fords Sports & Social Club in Treboeth next Monday (26th July) starting at 7.30pm.

Members and non-members of the sciety are welcome to attend.

In addition to the formal AGM business to be dealt with, we hope to give a presentation on the matchday use of COMET

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Phil Davies following a short illness

Phil will be well known to many of the football community throughout South & West Wales, initially as a player in Pembrokeshire FA, then as a referee and referee tutor.  Latterly, he has been acting as secretary of Garden Village FC

Swansea Referees’ Society offers its sincerest condolences and sympathy to Phil’s family and his many friends

Colin Discombe of the society summed up many people’s feelings, “Phil was not just an ex-referee, he was someone I was proud to all my friend”