FKF engineers a spring of referees

Football Kenya Federation president issues referees with qualification certificates/Courtesy

More referees have risen to join the elite ranks in the past four years, Football Kenya Federation (FKF) referees manager Sylvester Kirwa has said.

According to Kirwa, the local referees are beginning to see the benefits of development programs put in place by the federation which came into place in 2016 with the election of Nick Mwendwa to the helm of the football governing body.

“When I was employed by the federation, we decided to focus on various areas like capacity building, recruitment, development and having more women in the field of refereeing,” Kirwa said.

He said that the federation got two critical FIFA funded courses that changed the fate of local referees and the result is that Kenya sent women referees to the Africa Women Nations Cup (AWCON) and one the World Cup for the first time ever.

“Our two referees, Mary Ann and Caroline Wanjala have also joined the Elite ‘A’ category. Previously, referees used to pay money to attend courses but we abolished these allowing more of them to be trained,” he said.

Football Kenya Federation referees manager Sylvester Kirwa /Courtesy

Kirwa said the number of men elite referees has also gone up to three with Peter Waweru, Gilbert Cheruiyot and Davies Omweno joining the club.

“Locally, we have seen very young referees coming up and now majority of those handling the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) are between 24-33 years. This means that they have another 15 years at the top.”

Richard Obare a member of the referee’s committee said more than 2000 referees have been trained in the last four years.

“The courses have been quite helpful and our referees have benefitted a lot. Even referees at the grassroots level have benefitted from the new changes,” Obare said.

Margrate Omondi, a FIFA instructor noted that she is happy that a number of women referees are now officiating in the KPL.

 “Before that, we had just a few women at the top. But now there is no difference as more and more women are handling the KPL. Furthermore, men and women are getting an equal number of matches.”