Former World Cup referee Jerome Damon quit his long-standing teacher job this week to take up a new post as Fifa’s Referee Development Officer for Africa.
The 47-year-old Capetonian‚ twice named referee of the year and who blew at the 2010 World Cup‚ moves from his work with schoolkids to educating the continent’s referees‚ given the wide remit of making sure that development of match officials continues apace all over Africa.
His job also includes ensuring support for football associations who require help with their refereeing structures‚ getting the right equipment to places all over Africa and‚ of course‚ training.
Damon has already emerged as the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) training guru for Africa and headed several seminars‚ on the new technology‚ for referees from around the continent. VAR is to be used at the African Cup of Nations Cup in Egypt in June but only from the knockout stage.