‘My player experience helps me as a referee’
By Danielle Batist
The Homeless World Cup has a long tradition of former players gaining coaching qualifications after they return from the event. Many have come back as trainers and team managers to give new players a chance to experience the Homeless World Cup (HWC) magic. Lesser known to players on the pitch is that several of the referees have also been players in the past.
Next to pitch 3, we meet up with Adil Leite from Norway and Jaka Arisandy from Indonesia. Adil was a player at the Poznan 2013 Homeless World Cup, and Jaka played in Amsterdam in 2015. Together with referees from around the world, they are now in charge of refereeing the 400 games played in Seoul this week.
Both Jaka and Adil volunteered with their local soccer programme back home when they were asked to join the HWC Referee Training Programme, which helps HWC partner organisations develop referee skills around the world. After completing their training, both were asked to join the team of officials that work at the Homeless World Cup every year.
Adil
|Adil was a player in Poznan and shortly after joined the Homeless World Cup referee squad. Image: Angelica Ibarra Rodriquez
When Adil turned up to the Referee Training Programme, he recognised the referee who gave the training. “It was Paul Nagtegaal, the referee who had given me a blue card when I was a player in Poznan. I was not the kindest of players, and I could get quite angry with referees then. For a moment I thought: now I will be one myself! But then I started to see it from a different perspective. A referee sees the whole game and they do what is fair. After working with Paul and the team, I started looking at football from a referee perspective.”
Adil’s journey has been a long one (he told his life story at last year’s Homeless World Cup in Sacramento). From arriving in Norway as an Ethiopian referee, to playing on the Norwegian team, to being a well-liked and respected local and international HWC referee. The refereeing experience in particular had changed him, he says. “Becoming a referee meant that I had to become a professional. It is a big responsibility, but we share it together with the whole referee team. We talk after the match: what went well, how can we improve? We look out for each other. The referee team is like a family to me.”
Jaka
|Jaka first refereed at the Glasgow 2016 Homeless World Cup Image: Angelica Ibarra Rodriquez
Jaka’s refereeing career almost did not happen at all. After coming back as a player, he had no job and no idea what he would do next. When he was asked to join the Referee Training Programme, he initially wasn’t sure if he could do it. “I thought: I have no refereeing experience at all. It was my girlfriend who convinced me to join the programme. She even said: ‘If you want to be with me long term, then you have to do that course’. She knew it would change my life for the better.”
The Glasgow 2016 edition was Jaka’s first one as a match official. He finds it hard to find the words for how he felt about being back. “I cannot really describe it, I was quite speechless.” The referee team helped him see how how his experience as a player might help him relate to the new squads from around the world. “I know how they feel. It also teaches me a lot. The best part for me is to be learning about humanity. We all have to support each other, and that happens at the Homeless World Cup.”
Players on the Indonesian street soccer programme often get in touch with Jaka to ask how they can get involved in refereeing. “The ones who played at the Homeless World Cup all want to come back. Even others from around the world get in touch with me via Instagram and Facebook. They want to know how I did id.”
Looking back on the past nine years, Jaka describes how his life went from strength to strength. “Initially I was unemployed after being a player. Then the Referee Programme came to Indonesia and I got my chance there. My dream was to study and I got a scholarship for my bachelor’s degree, then a job, and even Master’s degree after that. I take part in this great event every year. And the girlfriend who encouraged me to go for it back then? She is now my wife.”
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Words: Danielle Batist
Photos: Angelica Ibarra Rodriguez