Socca Referees within the ISF have been provided with an extra budget for salaries, travel, accommodation and food at all ISF sponsored events in 2024 and beyond.
Head of Referees and Tournament Director Mareks Kere said “ With the amount of events now in our calender, including the Grand Prix Sevens in Georgia, the Champions League in Crete, the Eurocup in Moldova as well as extra events planned in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, as well as, of course, the World Cup in Oman, we will soon be having an event every month of the year – in fact that is very likely in 2025 – so we needed to secure an increased budget to cover all this”.
All Socca Referees will now receive payment for every event, on top of their full costs including accommodation, transfers, food and flights being paid for.
Mareks continued “We are talking about many tens of thousands of Euro and this is a big part of the budget, but everything we have asked for we have got, so that shows the importance the ISF now place on the referees.
On top of this package, all central Socca referees will receive a package of clothing including training wear, kits and accessories which are on order from the ISF ‘s UK Head Office.
“One of the worries in the past has been referees kit, but now we will each have our own dedicated kit for all events following a significant investment from the ISF into this area.
ISF Vice President Peter Spacey commented “In total we are committing over €100,000 euro into our referees budget for 2024 alone and with the increased events and commitment to pay salaries as well as all other expenses, it is important referees are our number one priority”.