Refs take part in FIFA course

For the third year running, Bermuda Football Association (BFA) participated in FIFA's annual Futuro III Referring course.

Held in Jamaica from August 2-7, the course was led by the senior manager of FIFA's refereeing department, Fernando Tresaco-Garcia and deputy general secretary of Concacaf, Ted Howard.

Head of refereeing Gregory Grimes, referee instructors Granville Bennett, Anthony Mouchette and fitness instructor Kuhn Evans represented Bermuda.

The eight other countries from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) taking part were Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.

The FUTURO III Refereeing course focused on improving referee technical instructors, referee fitness instructors, and heads of refereeing.

FIFA have handed all associations an April 2011 deadline by when they should have a referee's committee up and running with clear direct paths to follow.

Some of the areas include setting up a fitness programme, a mentoring programme and identifying talented referees.

The first of several educational courses/seminars for referees on the Island will take place this weekend.

An Assessor's course is being planned for September 17-19.

In November, former FIFA referees from the Caribbean, Ramesh Ramdham and Peter Pendergrast will be in Bermuda to conduct a course as part of FIFA's refereeing assistance programme. FIFA fitness instructor Merere Gonzales will join them.

Anyone interested should contact the BFA office on 295-2199.

Wade-Fray set

for Euro finals

Jeneya Wade-Fray's Great Britain women's team will join nine other nations at next summer's EuroBasket Women Finals in Poland.

Great Britain booked their place in the EuroBasket Finals for the first time last week with a 77-59 demolition of Germany at the Liverpool Echo Arena, in England.

The other group qualifiers were Croatia, Israel, Latvia, Slovak Republic, Lithuania, Montenegro and Turkey.

They join the six European teams that play in the 2010 FIBA World Championship, France, Russia, Spain, Belarus, Greece, and the Czech Republic and thus qualified automatically for the finals.

The EuroBasket Women Finals will take place the Polish cities Bydgoszcz, Katowice and Lódz from June 18-July 3.

Wade-Fray, 21, was called up by Great Britain earlier this year. Her selection followed an outstanding season with the University of Tennessee team in Chattanooga, USA. She will be pursuing a Masters Degree in sports exercise psychology at Sheffield University in Britain where she will look to play professionally with the Sheffield Hatters. The Hatters won sucessive titles between 1991 and 2002.

Lambe in losing

reserve team

Reggie Lambe's Ipswich Town reserves went down 2-0 in a behind closed doors friendly at QPR on Tuesday.

Town reserves opened their Totesport.com Football Combination East Division campaign with a 3-1 victory over Stevenage at Playford Road a fortnight ago.

Lambe, 19, has made two appearances for the Ipswich Town first team this season.