Senior local football referees are a special breed of individual on the verge of extinction, yet help appears on the way even if it may take a few more seasons to adequately rebuild the population.

For years the Bermuda Football Association [BFA] has faced a constant struggle to employ Bermuda resident match officials in sufficient numbers, regularly having to import foreign referees to officiate senior matches.

In an attempt to help sustain the sport on island, Alan Snoddy, a Uefa technical instructor, and Simon Breivik, a Professional Game Match Officials Limited [PGMOL] fitness instructor, have just completed a BFA-sanctioned referees skills programme with youngsters at Warwick Football Academy.

“We’ve just finished an eight-week course, which started just after Christmas and they finished just ahead of Easter,” explained Breivik while taking in Sunday’s First Division encounter between Somerset Eagles and St David’s.

“We had a group of about 25 kids in different age groups. It’s recruitment where we’re really just trying to get them involved in refereeing.

“Most of what we’ve done was online and we just came down here to finish them off and did the last session face to face in the classroom at the school and out on the field.

“My primary role is to assist Alan, whereby I just cover the fitness and nutrition side of it, come up with referee and assistant referee specific training programs, while Alan does all of the laws of the game.”

Snoddy expressed optimism that educating, encouraging and offering practical experience to young football enthusiasts would not only increase the number of referees, but also help with standards of play within the various leagues.

“The idea was that we try to provoke an interest in refereeing with the young students and, hopefully, have some of them start to referee football matches with the youth leagues in Bermuda, when they start again in September,” said Snoddy, who has officiated at two FIFA World Cup finals.

“So there is a big recruitment focus. There is a shortage of referees in Bermuda but we must say that this group of students really were tremendous. They were positive in their approach. They asked sensible questions and they seemed to enjoy it.”

The retired Northern Irish official understands more than most the unenviable task of referees and their assistants, whereby they are all too often deemed responsible for all that goes wrong during a match while being subject to none of the credit when matters proceed well.

“It’s the same the world over and it’s not going to change,” said Snoddy, who received an MBE in 2020 for his services to football.

“What we said to the students was that becoming a referee can help you in a lot of ways, such as character building, personality, dealing with difficult moments, recording information correctly.

“These things are important when applying for a job or applying to go to a university. To an interviewer or person that you’re trying to persuade to employ you, these skills are extremely useful and to have this on their CVs going from college to university or to gain a job it’s an extra, positive detail on their CV.”

Saluting the work of the pair as well as the efforts being made by Crenstant Williams, BFA 2nd Vice President and Referee Committee Chair and Richard Todd, the technical director of Warwick Football Academy, was North Village president Shervin Dill, who conceded there is little chance of rectifying the shortage at the senior level except to recruit and train youth referees for the future.

“I certainly recognise the critical stage of refereeing in Bermuda at the senior level in particular and I think it’s wonderful what the BFA are doing under Crenstant Williams to find a solution to this crisis,” said Dill.

“We have to start with youth. I want to say that the numbers are over 50 youth referees. My grandson is one of them and we have seven youth players that are involved in this program that are assisting the Referees Association to build up their numbers.

“Personally, I feel the senior level is an area where I don’t see how we’re going to fix it at that level. It has to be fixed at the youth level and this is the way forward.

“At at the moment they’re bringing in international referees from the Caribbean, Canada and the UK just to assist us getting through the season. It’s an expensive venture and we want to have the resources here in Bermuda.”