The game of soccer has seen unprecedented growth all levels throughout the world, including Canada. However, the game within British Columbia provides a number of unique challenges to the overall delivery of development programming; challenges such as, the geographical make up of our Province and the harmonization within our referee development program.  The establishment of a recognized structure for referee development, which realigns the development path to more appropriately dovetail into the CSA National Referee Program, is the ultimate goal of the BCSA Referee Program.

In order to address the landscape of the referee program, the BCSA established the Regional Referee Coordinator Program, which was developed to provide referees a key contact individual within each region of the province, to monitor, support development, and promote refereeing within that region.  At the time of inception, there were no full-time dedicated Referee Development staff members within the BCSA organization.  We are pleased that over the years the BCSA have been able to identify the need for referee specific staff which came to fruition with the hiring of a full-time Referee Development Coordinator, Jose Branco, to support this essential area of development.

“I am pleased to be the Referee Development Coordinator within the association and am thankful to our current list of Regional Referee Coordinators for their continuous support and dedication to refereeing.  In my time with the association, I have had the opportunity to work with a number of dedicated, referee specific, individuals outside the RRC Program, who have requested that they become involved with this program.” Jose Branco.  This request lead to a transparent review of the Regional Referee Coordinator Program and it was determined that having only one individual per region may not be the best situation to service all the referees within that region.

The majority of individuals that are working to development referees, are outside the RRC Program, in Head Referee or Referee in Chief positions within the various clubs throughout the province.  In light of this, the BCSA is pleased to announce that we, in order to service the referees of our province better, are moving to a club based Head Referee Model, much like the rest of the world. 

In order to have a smooth transition, we are requesting that if you are involved with a club / district association and wish to have your name listed as the Head Referee please contact Jason Elligott, our Technical Programs Manager at jasonelligott@bcsoccer.net

We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely express our thanks and congratulate all Regional Referee Coordinators on their successes as a BCSA Regional Referee Coordinator.  All of us moving forward, will continue to be an integral part of the Referee Development Program in this province.

 “Dedicated to Development”