FKF Vice President Doris Petra has listed the strides made by the federation in referee development as a key success story and a pillar in her presidential bid ahead of FKF national elections set for Saturday 7 December.Petra is the flag bearer of Team Blue with outgoing FKF President Nick Mwendwa serving as her running mate in what is a swap of their current roles.FKF Presidential candidates seek Raila’s nod ahead of crucial electionsPetra has now picked into the success story of their eight-year tenure with Mwendwa to help her in convincing delegates to vote for her candidature.”Our efforts in developing match officials have yielded positive results, significantly increasing the number of FIFA accredited referees in the country,” said Petra.The former Rift Valley National Executive Committee (NEC) member took pride in the establishment of a fully fledged referee department and an increase in the number of FIFA referees in their stay in office.“We have done well in the area of referee development because we have a robust referees department headed by a FIFA referee (Silvester Kirwa) and also his deputy is a FIFA referee. During this time, the number of FIFA accredited referees in Kenya has increased to 16, and when we came in, we only had about six. The results are there to be seen,” she stated.##NAJAVA_MECA_8547495##According to Petra, there has not only been an increase in the number of FIFA referees, but also the overall number of match officials in the country.“We have done well in capacity building for our referees across all counties and this has increased the number of qualified referees across the country,” she added.Petra also identified the gap between match officials and clubs has led to some ugly scenes before, but intends to introduce training for coaches and club officials to fill in the gap.Millions being dished out by FKF presidential candidates ahead of elections“We also need to educate the coaches and club officials on matters of football so that we can reduce the altercations between them and referees,” she added.Even with the increase in the number of match officials, there have been concerns about the remuneration of match officials which sometimes take a while before it is settled. Petra has acknowledged the matter but has revealed ways in which she would use to solve the matter.“We have had challenges in giving our referees better remuneration and timely payments. We acknowledge this challenge, and I undertake to solve it within the systems that we have put in place as well as seeking strategic partners to improve the payment packages for our referees,” she remarked.
