By Paul Nicholson
March 10 – CONCACAF have appointed a new director of refereeing following a review of its Refereeing Department earlier in the year.
Brian Hall joins the confederation for north and central America and the Caribbean from the Professional Referee Organization (PRO) where he was Match Official Development Manager. He was previously with CONCACAF for three years from 2010 as Director of Refereeing Administration.
Hall replaces Sonia Denoncourt who left CONCACAF at the end of 2015.
The Gold Cup, while a commercial success and triumph of organisation in the summer of 2015 (following the chaos in the confederation following the arrest of its president) was marred by a series of bitter referring disputes that culminated in Panama, angry at their semi-final loss to Mexico, calling for the resignation of the whole CONCACAF Referees Committee citing “insulting and shameful” refereeing. The demand was made in a statement on their website.
As a result of the subsequent allegations of match-fixing, the confederation announced a review of the decisions made at the Gold Cup as well as its Refereeing Department.
While no evidence of match-fixing was found – the mistakes were attributed to referee error – the review, led by interim president Alfredo Hawit, did find that stronger processes needed to be installed to raise the standards of refereeing in the region.
Commenting on his appointment Hall said: “I’m eager to work alongside CONCACAF’s staff, and the entire refereeing community, to continue building a professional Refereeing Department that raises the quality of refereeing for every competition across the region. As a Department, we must also prioritize the implementation of a robust referee development program that is tailored to assess and meet the needs of all 41 CONCACAF Member Associations.”
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1713560588labto1713560588ofdlr1713560588owedi1713560588sni@n1713560588osloh1713560588cin.l1713560588uap1713560588