Activity
Harry Dobson goes abroad to referee international football tournament
17/01/2017
Salmon is a place for opportunity to build the confidence, skills and experiences for young people, and for our long time member he was able to take all three of these to greater heights.
Harry Dobson had the opportunity to go abroad to ref at an international youth football tournament last year. Read more of his story below:
Hey ladies and gentleman, its me again Harry Dobson and I am here to give you an update on how my refereeing is going since I was qualified in January 2015 under the London FA. Many thanks to Salmon for putting me on the referee training course.
Before I get onto the abroad part, I have first had some experience within top level pitches in London, in May this year, I was invited by the London FA & Kent FA youth league to take part in a 7-a-side youth tournament run by precision pass that played in The Valley (Charlton Athletic) and Stamford Bridge (Chelsea FC), I was very honoured as I was rank top 10 refs out of 208 in the league so this was a reward, and we also got to watch world class football freestylers F2 at Chelsea.
My journey then continued abroad as I was working with a company called the IberCup which was an international youth football tournament company and they invited me to referee in Marbella, Spain (Costa Del Sol edition) and in Estoril, Lisbon, Portugal (Estoril edition). I was at venues such as the Marbella Football centre in Spain, and I refereed in for four of the following grounds in Portugal: Carcavelos, St Julian’s School, Salesianos School and Tires.
Over the two weeks my Business class flights with British Airways was fantastic, I was staying in 4 star Hotel accommodation, meals provided 3 times a day and the advice from Referee assessors were beneficial and overall fantastic, I was mostly refereeing young people aged u10s to u13s during the tournament from over 16 countries. Some of the teams were FIFA affiliated clubs such as Reading FC (Eng), Pro Touch Soccer (Eng), Benfica & Sporting Lisbon (Por), CF Málaga (Esp), FC Lyon (Fra), Paris St Germain (Fra), Juventus (Ita) and many more.
The experience overall was fantastic and I cannot thank TheFA enough for all the support and opportunities they have given me for this, I will definitely plan of coming again to the tournament but this time round, it will be new tournaments in USA, Barcelona, Portugal and maybe Warsaw, in Poland.
I hope and still pray that I take my refereeing up the ladder.