A week-long training course for Gambian football referees ended on Saturday, at the Friendship Hotel housed at the Independence Stadium, Bakau.

Dubbed the “High Level FIFA Refereeing Course”, the training, which gathered twenty six first division referees, was jointly organised by the Gambia Football Association in collaboration with the world football’s governing body (FIFA).

Speaking at the closing ceremony, Omar Ceesay, the second vice-president of the Gambia Football Association, said the training program is a collaboration venture of FIFA and the Gambia Football Association for a better and an accurate dispensation of the laws of the game.

He encouraged the trainees to remain committed to the profession and to make the course an occasion to remember.

The course director, Ghanaian Joseph Wellington, said the Gambia is the first African country to benefit from such course, which centres on recent adjustments made to the laws of the game.

He expressed his delight at the potential he saw in Gambian referees noting that the future is bright for the country’s referees. Declaring the training closed, Mr Omar Sallah, chairperson of the National Sports Council, urged the trainees to make good use of the knowledge gathered during the training.

He also cautioned the referees to always execute their duties with fair and favour, adding “the principle of  impartiality should be applied by every referee in our bid to develop the game of football.”

Other speaker at the ceremony, which was chaired by Abdou Salaam Jammeh, development officer at the Gambia Football Association, was the director of Youth and Sports Mr  Malang Jasseh, who urged the referees to always endeavor to keep abreast with the laws of the game.