New admissions strengthen referee convention

A further seven national football associations will join the UEFA Referee Convention after their membership was approved by the UEFA Executive Committee.

Formal recognition
The seven countries – Faroe Islands, Iceland, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Malta, Slovakia and Sweden – will be formally admitted to the Referee Convention at a signing ceremony to be held during the UEFA Congress in Copenhagen at the end of March. The Executive Committee followed a recommendation by the UEFA Referees Committee.

Accord
By signing the convention, the above-mentioned UEFA member associations agree to a development plan for refereeing and become entitled to receive a bonus of CHF 200,000 (about €130,000), and further annual payments of CHF 100,000 (about €65,000) as long as the required standards are maintained.

Objectives
The convention's objectives include enhancing referee education, promoting the role of referees and improving refereeing structures within the European associations. Within the framework of the convention, candidate associations are visited and given specific support by refereeing specialists over a period of time.

Momentum
The road to the UEFA Referee Convention began in 2003 with a UEFA referee audit of the national associations, which recommended measures in some countries in areas such as organisation, recruitment, assessment and nurturing of young match officials, appointments and independence of referees' bodies. After the convention had been approved by the UEFA Congress in Budapest in 2006, ten member associations – Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway, Scotland, Slovenia and Switzerland – became the first to sign the accord in June the next year, followed by three other association in December 2007: Austria, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland.