European adventure for English Futsal refs

FA Futsal Talent Group referees Peter Nurse and Tom Bramall were appointed to the European Universities Futsal Championships which took place in Tampere, Finland in July, the first time The FA and BUCS had worked closely to appoint match officials to this annual event.

The competition comprised of 24 men's teams and 12 women's teams from 19 different countries. England had two representatives in the men's competition (University of Sheffield and Team Bath).  Each team is required to provide a referee, so the mix of nationalities in the refereeing group was just as diverse as that of the teams.

The first three days of competition were group stage games with three teams per group. The winners of each group progressed directly into the top sixteen with the second and third placed teams playing off against similarly placed teams in other groups to progress to the top positions.  The group stages produced some interesting encounters with some heavyweight Futsal nations being drawn against developing countries.

The tournament really got started from the fourth day onwards, from which point all teams were playing for their final positions in the tournament. The top 16 matches in particular created some very interesting ties. Peter was appointed to referee the University of Minho (Portugal) vs. University of Coimbra (Portugal) which turned out to be a very high quality and incident packed match. Both teams face each other on a regular basis in the Portuguese national futsal league.  The last 16 games also showed the importance of the referees understanding the political relationship between the teams, with the game between universities from Russia and Georgia getting very heated following the Georgian’s defeat on penalties and resulting in their expulsion from the tournament.

The quality of the teams at the tournament, from the last eight onwards, was extremely high with teams playing at a level that is rarely seen in England.  Tom was the only non-FIFA referee appointed to referee a uarter final match. On paper, Tom’s appointment to University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) versus Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain) looked to be the easiest of the quarter finals, but the reality was that it was probably one of the most closely fought games of the entire tournament with Valencia eventually winning by a single goal scored inside the last 20 seconds.

The vast majority of Peter and Tom’s appointments came in the men’s competition, but they were both involved in the women’s competition as well.  Peter was appointed to both women’s semi final matches (timekeeper and second referee) and Tom refereed in both the group and placing stages.  The standard of the women’s competition was high, with the Portuguese, Polish and French teams being particularly strong.

On the final day of the tournament Peter was appointed to referee the 7th/8th place final and Tom to referee the 9th/10th place final. With both games taking place early in the day, it left a little time to relax and reflect on the end of the tournament before watching the final game between two Spanish teams; Universidad Politecnica de Valencia v Universidad de Malaga, with Valencia winning the final game 4-2. The English universities Sheffield and Bath finished 14th & 17th respectively, which with the quality of participating teams being so high, was credible.

There was a huge amount to be learnt from refereeing at this competition. Both Peter and Tom had the opportunity to work with referees of different nationalities, with a dozen referees at the tournament being on the FIFA Futsal referee list. Understanding different sets of instructions from game to game, observing different refereeing styles and giving instructions to a referee team that may not speak any of your language was a good learning curve. Having the opportunity to officiate and watch high quality games threw up so many different scenario’s and incidents to be dealt with and learnt from. During the tournament lighting failure from a lightning strike and a pitch developing large surface bubbles due to the humidity all were interesting situations.

Outside of the games there was lots of opportunity to talk with the other referees and delegates about the competition, Futsal in their respective countries and understand the specific directives that had to be applied at the tournament. The length of the competition (eight days) highlighted the preparation required and how you need to look after yourself when you are required to referee at least one game every day.

Both Peter and Tom can come away from the tournament extremely proud of their performances following very positive comments throughout the week backed up with the excellent appointments.  Setting such a positive impression surprised some of the more established Futsal nations at the standard of English Futsal refereeing. Great strides have been made in our domestic refereeing programme through our development panel which has been instrumental in creating these opportunities for aspiring Futsal officials.

Hopefully, English university teams will continue to qualify for the tournament and want to go and play.  That in turn should offer a fantastic opportunity for more English Futsal referees to gain a vast amount of experience in a very short space of time.  It would be a huge step forward for Futsal in England if this tournament could become a regular development opportunity for both our teams and our referees.