All ref­er­ees are in­vit­ed and urged to at­tend a sem­i­nar host­ed by the T&T Foot­ball Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion, on Sun­day, which will ex­am­ine the is­sues which af­fects the qual­i­ty of de­ci­sion mak­ing in the sport lo­cal­ly. The fo­rum will be con­duct­ed at the San Juan North Sec­ondary School, from 9.30 am to noon, and led by three for­mer FI­FA ref­er­ees Joseph Tay­lor, Os­mond Down­er and Boni Bish­op. Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease sent by the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee of the T&TFRA, the first aim of the as­so­ci­a­tion is that of "fur­ther­ing the cause of foot­ball in gen­er­al and of ref­er­ee­ing in par­tic­u­lar," and has been prompt­ed to hold the sem­i­nar af­ter ma­jor con­cerns raised about the stan­dard of of­fi­ci­at­ing in all ma­jor foot­ball com­pe­ti­tions dur­ing the last sea­son.

"The Gen­er­al Coun­cil of the T&TFRA has de­cid­ed to use the wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge that ex­ist among our mem­bers to take ac­tion to cor­rect this un­sat­is­fac­to­ry sit­u­a­tion. Poor of­fi­ci­at­ing can do noth­ing but low­er the stan­dard of foot­ball in the coun­try," as stat­ed in the re­lease. Top­ics to be raised in­cludes, the off­side rule as it re­lates to tech­niques for im­prov­ing the ac­cu­ra­cy of de­ci­sion mak­ing, "deal­ing with se­ri­ous fouls", and how po­si­tion­ing and move­ment by ref­er­ees fa­cil­i­tates prop­er recog­ni­tion and treat­ment, and fi­nal­ly changes in the laws of the game. Tay­lor will over­see the is­sues of the off­side rule, while Down­er and Bish­op will luc­ture the is­sues of se­ri­ous fould and changes in the laws, re­spec­tive­ly. The Coun­cil has al­so di­rect­ed that fol­low­ing the sem­i­nar which will launch the train­ing pro­gramme for the 2012-2013 pe­ri­od, zones will en­gage mem­bers in re­fresh­er ses­sions, which will in­clude both the­o­ry and prac­ti­cal ac­tiv­i­ties.