An urgent appeal for new referees

Presteigne St Andrews FC
Do you fancy taking up the whistle?
Presteigne St Andrews FC
Do you fancy taking up the whistle?

Have you been to a local game and given the referee a bit of stick from the sidelines, thinking: ‘I could do better than that..’

Well, now here is your chance to prove it!

The Mid Wales League (South) in particular and local football in general is short of match officials and they are looking for new referees to come on board.

Mid Wales League (South) secretary Alan Randell explains the current situation.

“Because we play at Level 5, we are the last league to have referees appointed.

“There is a shortage of referees in our area which will lead to matches not having an official appointed – these matches will not be able to go ahead without a registered referee.

“The only way I can see us getting around this is for every club to have one person do the online referees course and then we can register those new officials on Comet.

“Then, if a registered referee from the Central Wales FA is not appointed, the club referee can officiate.”

So, it is not as though if you qualify you would be expected to travel halfway across Wales to take charge of a match – in the first instance it appears as though new officials would only be appointed to a game if there is no CWFA official available to take charge.

If you are interested in taking up the whistle to help out the local football scene then, in the first instance, please contact club secretary Sharon Jones.  You can email Sharon by clicking here.

It would be good if we could find one or two willing volunteers from the Presteigne area – after all, as Alan says: “The last thing we want after 18 months without football is to have matches postponed for this reason.”