‘Who will honour assistant referees?’

The Harare banquet honoured players, teams and officials who all contribute to making the game so beautiful and most followed the world over.
It is perhaps not a surprise at all that Fifa has a membership of 208 states while the United Nations has 192.
The above reality shows how powerful football is.

As everyone was busy hugging and congratulating one person after the other, one could really feel the excitement.
Later as I slept (obviously alone) in my bed at the splashy Delta Beverages owned Mandel suites in Marlborough,  my mind raced back to the event, especially when the most outstanding referees were being called up to the podium for their awards.

I then asked myself, since time immemorial, it has always been the centre man who gets recognition. Long back, before specialisation, it was a bit fair because all the match officials would at one time be at the centre or take to the centre, therefore eligible for selection at the end of the year.
However ever since this creature called specialisation came, it has sidelined those who became ‘linesmen’, now known as assistants.

While we reward the centreman, it is clear that his successes did not come in his individual performance but as a team, a team of three. Himself, the first assistant referee and the second assistant.
But then why are we recognising just one individual?
This is like a relay event in athletics. Will it be fair to other runners, if only the last one who will hit the finish line gets the gold medal and all the glory that comes with the victory? Certainly not but this is what is exactly

happening with the referees.
It might be difficult yes to come up with a selection criteria but I believe a way can always be found. The referees association can for example, engage the league sponsors at the beginning of the season to reserve

some kind of prizes for the assistants. Something which will make them feel they are part of the game.
To them the hullaballoo about Stars Awards is meaningless because under the present system their efforts will never be recognised.
Since the referees are an arm of Zifa, I call upon the esteemed leadership of Cuthbert Dube to look at this issue holistically and perhaps come up with a system that will recognise outstanding assistant referees.