Ref­er­ee PJ Williams and um­pire Kevin Yung­have both been pro­mot­ed in their re­spec­tive ca­pac­i­ties by Pan Am Bad­minton.

In 2022, Williams was rec­om­mend­ed for ref­er­ee as­sess­ment af­ter the Pan Am in­di­vid­u­als in El Sal­vador, and this year he was of­fi­cial­ly cho­sen to be Head Ref­er­ee for Pan Am’s high­est-lev­el tour­na­ment, as well as for as­sess­ment at the Pan Am In­di­vid­ual cham­pi­onships in Ja­maica.

Over a pe­ri­od of six days, he was as­sessed for Pan Am Bad­minton’s high­est lev­el, Cer­tifi­cat­ed Ref­er­ee.

Orig­i­nal­ly ap­point­ed Ac­cred­it­ed Ref­er­ee back in 2017, Williams has al­ready rep­re­sent­ed Pan Am Bad­minton as a Ref­er­ee in South Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and North Amer­i­ca.

He is the first and on­ly Bad­minton Ref­er­ee in T&T to date. Oth­er bad­minton ref­er­ees in the Caribbean are Dionne Haynes from Bar­ba­dos and Trevor Mc­Cain from Ja­maica.

He was orig­i­nal­ly ap­point­ed Ac­cred­it­ed Ref­er­ee in 2017. In 2023, he was cho­sen to be Head Ref­er­ee for Pan Am’s high­est-lev­el tour­na­ment and for as­sess­ment at the PanAM In­di­vid­ual cham­pi­onships in Ja­maica. Over six days as well, he was as­sessed for Pan Am Bad­minton’s high­est lev­el, Cer­tifi­cat­ed Ref­er­ee.

Williams is the first and on­ly bad­minton ref­er­ee in Trinidad and To­ba­go to date. Oth­er bad­minton ref­er­ees in the Caribbean are Dionne Haynes from Bar­ba­dos and Trevor Mc­Cain from Ja­maica.

Mean­while, Yung, who has been an ac­cred­it­ed um­pire for the last five years, was ex­am­ined at a Pan Am Bad­minton tour­na­ment in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic by an um­pires’ as­ses­sors pan­el. Af­ter five days of con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ment, it was an­nounced that he had passed and grad­ed to the next high­er lev­el, which was of Cer­tifi­cat­ed Um­pire.

Yung has rep­re­sent­ed Pan Am Bad­minton in the USA, Cana­da, El Sal­vador, Suri­name, Chile, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, Brazil, Mex­i­co and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

In both cas­es, there are two lev­els for um­pires and ref­er­ees. Ac­cred­it­ed is where an in­di­vid­ual meets the min­i­mum lev­el re­quired to um­pire or ref­er­ee at all in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments in the Pan Am re­gion.

The Cer­tifi­cat­ed lev­el is the high­est lev­el of um­pir­ing or ref­er­ee­ing, as it en­ables the in­di­vid­ual to demon­strate that he has met all the re­quire­ments to per­form at the high­est lev­el.

T&T has had a few of­fi­cials who were ap­point­ed Pan Am um­pires—Patrick Cun­ning­ham, Ka­masha Robert­son, Shaun Sookdeo, and now Williams and Yung.