Good Day EMSA Members:
As the season quickly approaches I wanted to highlight a large concern that may be overlooked and could be instrumental in your organizations’ effective return to play. Match official enrolment, similar to player registration, is way down. We currently have roughly 120 match officials registered for this season which is 33% of what our district normally operates at. As it stands, we may not be able to support a full season in the manner we would have in 2019.
This is where you come in. We need you to pass the message on to your networks about the following two points:
1. Existing match officials need to get on to refcenter and register. We are rolling out RTP education and they would benefit from being a part of this. In addition, match officials who do not register in 2 consecutive seasons are forced to redo the entire entry level program. Even if the match officials want a limited capacity in 2021 I would suggest they maintain their accreditation by registering.
2. We need
NEW Referees The Pandemic has significantly impacted our resources of match officials. Ontario Soccer has just reopened accreditation clinics. Please reach out to your contacts and memberships to suggest people to take the course. The bulk of the experience is online.
Registration for the clinics will close on June 30 2021. Please have them go to
ontariosoccer.net to register for new clinics ASAP!
We need your support of the Match Officials group in order to help maintain and enforce the standards expected in the EMSA district. The province has been ravaged in terms of Match Officials numbers as a result of the COVID shutdowns. EMSA is a progressive district for match officials development and maintained fitness and education programming during our downtime. We are confident our returning match officials will be able to perform to standard and would like to have even more return and as many new match officials as possible to join our family.
We can be reached at
emsarefs@gmail.com our link up to our website via the emsa website our google.
All the best,
Matt McCready
DRC - EMSA
Member - Ontario Soccer Technical Advisory Committee and Match Official Development Committee.
OS A2021-014 Updating contact information for District Referee Coordinators and Club HeadReferees