Referees in the North West will converge on Kano on Tuesday, 15th of December as the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) referees refresher course train stops over in the zone.
According to the program released by the zonal representative on the board, Surajo Yussuf, the training will take place at the Indoor Sports Hall, Kofar Mata, Kano between Tuesday, 15th and Saturday, 19th of December.
The training will be supervised by FIBA badged referee, Kingsley Ojeaburu, Husaini Musa, Fatima Ibrahim Yahaya and Samuel Nuhu with old and new referees from Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara expected to be in attendance.
Speaking about the mission of the NBBF to have more trained referees, the Federation President, Engr Musa Kida said, “We are not going to relent in our quest to impact all stakeholders. Before covid-19, we had planned to collaborate with FIBA and bring certified instructors down to Nigeria to afford many the unique opportunity of becoming graded referees. Since Covid-19 happened, we have adopted a new format which has a far reaching effect on more referees.”
With training already organised for referees in the South West and North East, the board is poised to ensure that technical officials are exposed to the highest level of training available.
“Our goal is to ensure that Nigerian referees attain the highest level possible and be able to compete with their colleagues across Africa. We want more referees from Nigeria to be badged by FIBA and officiate during continental and international events.”
Having highlighted sound officiating as a key ingredient of strong national leagues, the NBBF has intensified training for referees.
To this end, more zones will benefit from the referees training which is expected to continue in 2021.
