Opportunity to become college Officiating Hub for 2020/21

Colleges have an exciting opportunity to provide students with subsidised officiating qualifications and become an Officiating Hub for AoC Sport. Nine Officiating Hubs were launched last year as part of the Leadership Academy to support the delivery of competitions, including Regional Tournaments, and to provide students with access to qualifications and high-quality opportunities to officiate. The hubs were a success so we are continuing to run them next year in basketball and futsal and will be introducing rugby union for the first time. We are working in partnership with the England Colleges RFU to train rugby referees to support the Regional Tournaments in autumn 2020. The expression of interest (EOI) form deadline has been extended until Friday 24 April. Below are further details of the commitment and criteria required for each sport.

How it worked this year

In our first year we trained 40 students from 4 colleges as basketball table officials to support the delivery of Regional Tournaments. Three of those students were then selected to be table official volunteers for the National Championships at University of Nottingham. In Yorkshire and Humber we worked in partnership with Yorkshire Sport to enhance the Officiating Hubs programme. Once completing their table official qualifications, students from The Sheffield College were trained as basketball referees to support the Yorkshire School Games programme. To deliver the futsal Officiating Hubs we worked closely with County FA’s from across the country and will be continuing to upskill the student workforce in the next academic year. 50 students from 6 colleges were trained as referees to support the AoC Sport regional futsal competitions. For more information on the expectations of Officiating Hubs and how to apply please read the information document below. Officiating Hubs EOI Information 2020