Im­prov­ing the stan­dard of ref­er­ee­ing was key among top­ics dis­cussed be­tween TT Pro League and the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTFA) Ref­er­ee's De­part­ment dur­ing a meet­ing held at the league's of­fice in St Au­gus­tine, ear­li­er this month."It was re­fresh­ing," said head of the TTFA ref­er­ee's de­part­ment, Ramesh Ramd­han, who holds the ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tion since Ju­ly 2012."It was the first time I've at­tend­ed a meet­ing with the league. It was a mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit­ing meet­ing for the de­vel­op­ment of the league and the de­vel­op­ment of the ref­er­ees."The meet­ing, head­ed by Pro League CEO Dex­ter Skeene as part of the league's ini­tia­tive Bridg­ing the Gap–Part­ner­ing for Progress. Al­so in­clud­ed the league's gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ju­lia Bap­tiste and chair­man of the TTFA ref­er­ee's de­part­ment, Bryan Lane.

Ramd­han re­vealed that a lot of new and on­go­ing ini­tia­tives are part of the ref­er­ee's de­part­ment's four-year plan to­wards im­prov­ing the stan­dard and im­age of ref­er­ee­ing.The 53-year-old busi­ness­man and for­mer Fi­fa ref­er­ee high­light­ed that "there will be a pro­mo­tion and de­mo­tion sys­tem" in ef­fect from this sea­son."It wouldn't be like that past, where the same ref­er­ees will be seen at the Pro League lev­el," he said."On­ly ref­er­ees that have passed the manda­to­ry fit­ness tests, once every three months will ref­er­ee in the Pro League. No one fail­ing the tests will be al­lowed to ref­er­ee at the top. In­stead they would have to ref­er­ee at the di­vi­sion be­low and so on."It was re­fresh­ing for Skeene on hear­ing that. He was im­pressed by the work of the ref­er­ee's de­part­ment be­hind the scenes."It wouldn't hap­pen overnight, but I have a plan for the next four years and it in­volves train­ing the ref­er­ees at the high­est lev­el, while the same sort of de­vel­op­men­tal work is done at dif­fer­ent lev­els, such as the Su­per League and zone foot­ball."

Ramd­han who boasts a 25-year ref­er­ee­ing ca­reer, of­fi­ci­at­ing at es­ti­mat­ed 170 in­ter­na­tion­als, one of which was a Fi­fa 1998 World Cup match (Japan ver­sus Croa­t­ia) and an­oth­er the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup Fi­nal in the same year, di­vulged more in­ter­est­ing de­vel­op­ments.This sea­son ref­er­ees will don new kits spe­cif­ic to leagues, and al­so the brand of kit spon­sor, Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trols Board (NL­CB)."I want­ed to im­prove the im­age of the ref­er­ees and for the first time we have a kit spon­sor," Ramd­han ex­plained. "Spe­cif­ic uni­forms with the Pro League lo­go will be worn at games. It will be the new im­age of the ref­er­ees in the Pro League."I asked for cer­tain things to be done on the Pro League end, in giv­ing ref­er­ees their space for the de­vel­op­ment of prop­er re­fer­ring and serv­ing the game the way as it should be.

"We have al­so main­tained ex­ist­ing rates (charged for ref­er­ee­ing) to help our con­tri­bu­tion to the league. So we are work­ing to­geth­er for the good of the game. I al­so of­fered my ser­vices to do a sem­i­nar for clubs and sup­port­ers with ma­te­r­i­al that I have on the laws on the game by FI­FA. It's good to ed­u­cate both sides. Sim­i­lar­ly we would like that coach­es have a ses­sion for ref­er­ees in shar­ing some of their con­cerns."The for­mer Fi­fa ref­er­ee de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer al­so sup­ports play­ing Pro League match­es at com­mu­ni­ty grounds, which the league in­tends to do from time to time dur­ing the 2013-2014 sea­son and be­yond."I have been won­der­ing why that hasn't been so all along. I be­lieve if you do that, it will at­tract peo­ple to the foot­ball. That's a step in the right di­rec­tion," said Ramd­han.