“All a referee needs”: Officials finetune their preparations

The EHF Officials Conference in Wednesday in Ljubljana brought together the 12 referee pairs and 12 delegates who will officiate during the Women's EHF EURO 2022. The tournament in Slovenia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro starts Friday.

Over the past three days, delegates and referees have done numerous tests, workshops and team building activities. The main focus has been the use of video replay technology, conditioning, and mental preparation.

Through the partnership with FitGood Pro, EHF referees and delegates started their conference with team building and biometric tests, before group workshops and discussions on important topics for the EHF EURO made them ready for the tournament.

According to EHF Referee Programme Coordinator George Bebetsos, the main focus has been “to prepare delegates and referees for the upcoming EHF EURO with last-minute information.”

“We have shown them case studies of situations they might come across during the matches. For the referees, the focus was on refereeing guidelines, what we want them to follow during the European Championship and the proper use of the technology, mainly video replay technology: how, when, under which circumstances, how often, etc.”

The programme further included group work and match case studies, along with individualised topics for delegates and referees.

“The other part was the individualised practical information to the referees, like nutrition during the EHF EURO, menus at the hotel prior to the match and after the match, conditioning, and mental preparation,” Bebetsos says.

“With delegates, we worked on case studies and on, what I would call, best practice dilemmas when it comes to ‘expect the unexpected’ situations.”

Tatjana Prastalo, EHF referee from Bosnia and Herzegovina, is excited about the new opportunities and feels well prepared ahead of the first match.

“We have complemented the information we received at the kick-off seminar held in Vienna in August. During the last three days, we have been talking about video replay technology, new rules, nutrition, mental and physical preparation. All that a referee needs ahead of a big tournament like the EHF EURO,” Prastalo says.

“For me, video replay is something new, I have never used it before. That might be the biggest challenge for this competition, but I don’t think there will be a lot of problems in using it. We have gone through all possible situations with many case studies. The only thing left now is preparing for the first matches.”

Passive play, a new throw-off area, and protection of the goalkeeper are new rules added on 1 July 2022. While players and national team officials are familiar with those rule changes, the referees and delegates have worked on making them more understandable to everyone in the arenas.

“New rules are not a problem, but maybe spectators will need a few matches to understand them,” Prestalo says. “But we have been working on signalisation, too, to make them easy to understand.”

Photos © Uros Hocevar & Sasa Pahic Szabo / kolektiff