Major reshuffle in referee structure

Johannesburg - Former top match officials have been roped in by the South Africa Football Association (Safa) in an effort to restructure the refereeing department.

Ian McLeod, Andile “Ace” Ncobo, Jerome Damon and Enoch Molefe will be involved in different roles in refereeing matters, but Safa has been mum on the future of former head of referees Peter Sejake.

It is not clear what Sejake’s new role will be as he has been excluded from the new structure.

Sejake referred the matter to Safa, but spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi refused to divulge details of his new role, saying Safa did not discuss staff roles in the media.

However, he confirmed the new changes.

The men were hard at work at a workshop at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria this week.

“Ian McLeod made a presentation to the Safa national executive committee in April on how to enhance the Safa Referees Programme,” said Chimhavi.

“He will assist us in rolling out this programme throughout the country, starting with the elite referees and taking that down to the grassroots Safa structures around the country.”

“He will be assisted by Tenda Masikhwa and the referees technical sub-committee, which has been restructured for greater effectiveness. The referee department’s performance is under review with a view to bolstering the capacity of the department, and further announcements will be made once this process has been completed.”

Chimhavi added that the technical sub-committee had also been restructured, with Damon, Ncobo and Molefe brought in to add more value to the referees’ development structure.

Meanwhile, a few match officials have failed the annual fitness test, meaning they won’t be in the new panel to oversee league matches when the season kicks off next month.

Chimhavi would not reveal the names of the failed officials, saying: “An announcement will be made in this regard once we have assessed the outcomes of the pre-season workshop.”

However, City Press has reliably learnt that Lwandile Mfiki is among those who were unsuccessful.

This is not the first time the Eastern Cape match official has failed a fitness test. He was also unsuccessful at the previous workshop in January.

Others who were unsuccessful in their attempt include Nasief Julius, Edward Madidilane and Khulekani Thusi.

But it has emerged that there was a technical glitch with the testing equipment, which might change the outcome of the results.

Chimhavi said the referees committee would address these matters once an assessment of the workshop had been conducted.