Squash referees need upgrade

By Esther Egbe

After successfully staging a two-day coaching course in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, the Nigeria Squash Federation (NSF) is organizing another two-day National Referees’ Certification Course in Lagos on March 26 to 27 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium,National Daily gathered.

The referees’ certification course is part of the federation’s efforts at developing the sport at grassroots level and the exercise will have World Squash Federation (WSF)-certified referee – Lucky Mlilo of Zimbabwe as resource person.

President of NSF, Boye Oyerinde told National Daily that the training and retraining of coaches and officiating officials is a key factor, and pre-requisite towards the development of squash, especially at the grassroots development.

Oyerinde,  explained  that the training of officiating officials would help to acquaint them with the latest on the sport, while stating that training of officials would be a continuous exercise, and he emphasized that more attention is being focused on grassroots development.

“It is very important for our referees to update their knowledge and we have decided to do this with a world class certified official who will be on ground for two days to pass the knowledge to our officiating officials. Just like I stated during the coaching course in Ilorin, our efforts to improve the fortune of the sport will be an all-round as we are helping the players and coaches, the officials will not be left behind because they will also help us as well as partners in progress,” Boye said.

He added that federation intends to work with schools, and also taking into account the available squash facilities in the country to train players that have been categorized into U-13, U-16, U19 and senior in both male and female categories.