Refereeing lessons from AFCON

Despite some initial hiccups at the start of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament in Equatorial Guinea, the entire games and the matches played so far have proved to be very competitive and entertaining. The standard of play has been high just like any similar encounters anywhere in the world and so has refereeing.

The AFCON referees have confirmed the new face-changing era in global refereeing as out-doored during the Brazil World Cup.

One could even add that majority of the African referees have generally improved upon the standards set during the World Cup. Gambia middle referee Bakari Papa Gassama set the tone in the opening match between host country Equatorial Guinea and Congo.

With his two able assistants, Mawa Range, from Kenya and Maguette Nchiaye from Senegal, they banished the fear and perception that some referees tend to favour host national teams during tournaments of this nature. The belief is that in order to guarantee host fans interest and participation in match patronage, host national teams should be “assisted” by referees to stay longer in the tournament. But exhibiting first class performance, Gambian referee Gassama and his assistants proved their mantle.

Indeed there were two separate instances during both halves of the match that some of us felt that the host national team could have been awarded penalty kicks against their opponents.

Apart from the usual fanatic uproar from the stands, the players themselves never raised any form of protest and Equatorial Guinea made progress through their own efforts.

It was a very entertaining and well-contested match with Congolese head coach sitting on thorns till the dying minutes of the game. Indeed the only bad comment from Coach Claude de Roy was against the Bata slow traffic, which he said, delayed his team on the road for over two hours. None of the two teams had any bad words or condemnation for the referees.

Handball 1. Is the hand moving towards the ball or the ball moving towards the hand? 2. Are the players’ hands or arms in a “natural position” or an “unnatural position”? 3. Does the player attempt to avoid the ball striking his hand? 4. Does the ball strike the hand from a short or from a long distance? 5. Does the player prevent an opponent gaining possession of the ball by handling it? 6. Does the player attempt to score a goal by deliberately handling the ball? 7. Does the player try to deceive the referee by handling the ball? 8. Does the player prevent a goal by deliberately handling the ball like the infamous Suarez of Uruguay?

The above considerations were very visible during the Brazil mundial and they are embedded in the decisions of our AFCON match officials in their application of the various laws.

Although referees all over the world have undergone training programmes involving these added ways of interpretation and application, our AFCON referees and other match officials were also taken through them when they assembled in Bata, the second largest city of Equatorial Guinea before the start of the tournament. The message, therefore, is continuous training and assessment.

Although our local referees have also been taught the same interpretation of the laws, it would be useful if they would continue to learn from the ongoing tournament officiating. The matches have been entertaining and refreshing, but as referees it would be useful if our local referees would concentrate their attention more on the referees and the way they apply the laws of the game than concentrating on the enjoyments provided by the players and their teams.

The ongoing AFCON 2015 freely provides a lot of learning lessons. The referees and their assistants are currently the elite of African refereeing.

Indeed some of them were among the elite World referees who handled last year’s Brazil World Cup. It would be advisable for our referees to seize this opportunity to learn and improve upon their own performances. Areas like even the personality and appearance of the referee should be useful lessons.

Sometimes, it is easy to ignore the presence of some referees during their matches. That is when those referees position themselves so well, follow the game closely and take prompt and correct decisions.

In contrast, there are some referees who delay in taking their decisions because they were far away from incidents and could not apply their whistles to instantly direct and control play. Correct and prompt decisions by referees take away the eyes and minds of spectators and those involved in the game from the referee.

Another vital area in refereeing which is being efficiently applied at the ongoing tournament is the co-operation between middle referees and their assistants. There is nothing more frustrating to assistant referees when their middle referees delay so much in noticing their flags.

The cardinal duty of an assistant referee is to judge and indicate off-side positioning by players.

It is always very helpful and useful when their flags are instantly noticed and responded to. It is all the more, very frustrating when such flaggings are not re-acted to quickly and players in off-side positioning succeed in ‘putting the ball into the net’ before the referee’s whistle.

I have not noticed the use of goal-line technology but this does not appear to have affected the performance of our referees. However, other gadgets like the vanishing spray and referees communication systems are in use during the AFCON tournament.

It is well that despite some criticisms, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has been able to go ahead with the tournament. Good reason has won over the initial fear and panic. The CAF deserves commendation. However, it would be in the interest of African football and development, if the financial rewards in participating in AFCON tournament would be largely improved.

Ghana had almost nine million dollars for participating in Brazil 2014 up to the preliminary stages of the game. The winners of the tournament had almost 35 million dollars. How much will the AFCON winners get? Some say one-and-half million dollars. It requires hard work and management.

There is money in world football; Africa is part of the world and we must learn to improve upon our present reward system. CAF appears to be stagnant and archaic when it comes to giving financial rewards to game participants.