The Futsal Class 1 Referee Instructor Training was held at the Green Arena Kobe in Hyogo on Saturday 31 May and Sunday 1 June. 20 instructors took this training and had an opportunity to coach referees participating in the KOBE Festa 2014, which turned out to be a very practical training for the instructors.
In addition to the regular schedule, this training was accompanied by another set of training for female Class 1 Referees of football with the purpose of developing a female Futsal International Referee. While there are currently no female International Referees from Japan, six female Class 1 Referees attended the training eventually to fulfil that international role.

Lecturer Comments

ISOKAWA Chairman, Futsal / Beach Soccer Section
This time the training included teaching, in a real-game setting, referees who worked in the Futsal KOBE Festa matches. First we split them into small groups and did presentations on the game regulations.
The participants learned things like how to do a presentation, how to behave in lecturing and how to deal with people taking a lecture by discussing with other instructors where they have done well and where to improve. In the On-the-job part of training, they learned fundamentals such as where to position themselves in a match and where to keep an eye on in each play. There were also some players helping us as demonstrators, and we did refereeing training in a real-game setting. There we showed things to note when we teach judging criteria for fouls and how to execute those criteria.
On the second day, we worked on evaluation on referees who were working in real matches in order to reconcile every instructor’s evaluation standards. We did match analysis as well.
There will be occasions that we do assessments and instructions for referees in the F-League, which starts its 2014-2015 season this month, and other futsal national tournaments of each category. The instructors who participated in this training will teach referees, from ones on top to regional referees, as well as regional referee instructors. I hope they will take advantage of the know-hows that they learned in this training and keep developing those referees and instructors.

Participants Comments

SASAKI Futsal Class 1 Instructors (Hokkaido)
It was the first training I took as a Futsal Class 1 Referee Instructor.
I had my hands really full only to keep up with each curriculum, but I leaned many things.
When we did presentations on game regulations and refereeing rules, it was for female Class 1 Referees of football. The feedback from those referees reminded me that using and categorising examples and using movies made it easier for them to understand the difference between football and futsal and unique rules that only futsal has.
In a practical training, we learned the importance of things like “starting with easy things and gradually moving to more difficult ones”, “doing the same things over and over again”, “explaining the overview and objectives of each training before we start and summarising after we are done”, which is very basic though, “paying attention to safety” and “doing preparation beforehand.”
In a Q&A session of standards and game regulations, I was reminded of not only each actual standard but also the importance of using the right terminology when expressing your own opinion. I have told the referees in my region to “use right terminology”, but there were times in this training when I looked back what I have done and couldn’t be sure that I myself had done it or not. I have come to believe strongly that referees would be confused if an instructor uses wrong terminology or words that all of us can’t define in the same way.
I will pass on what I learned in this training to referees that I coach as well as Class 2 and Class 3 Instructors in my region.

MORI Futsal Class 1 Instructors (Aichi)
I participated in the Futsal Class 1 Instructor Training for the first time. I stepped in the room with full of nervousness and expectation.
In the first half of the training, we taught game regulations of futsal and refereeing rules to female Class 1 Referees of football.
I My part was teaching the four seconds count, which is unique in futsal, in a real-game setting.
I I tried to talk about too many things in a limited amount of time, and it got too long, so I couldn’t have them repeat many times.
I I couldn’t do my best coaching this time, but I will keep working on it with doing something like this again on my mind.
In the second half of the training, we had a lecture on the F-League standards and also match analysis and assessment by using real matches. I learned so much of new knowledge by listening to our lecturer and other more-experienced instructors on where they are looking at and how precisely they have their views on each subject. On the other hand that also reminded that there was a great deal of responsibility involved in our role.
As I start working as a Futsal Class 1 Instructor, I want to watch as many matches in person as possible, communicate with as many referees as possible and grow together with them.