RefCoach Podcasts

In this episode, Ale, Jack & Benji interviewed Tori Penso. Tori is the General Manager of the National intercollegiate soccer officials association, aka NISOA and she was the first woman to referee an MLS in the past 20 years for a total of 3 matches in her debut season. Tori told us what her role with NISOA is and some of the challenged she faced during the COVID pandemic. We also talked about her debut in the MLS, her journey to that historical moment and how she achieved so much by having a mindset of always leaning in, saying yes first and working out the details later.

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In this episode, Ale, Jack & Benji interviewed Dr Tom Webb, known in the football for his outstanding work researching match officials, focussing on referee abuse and how to tackle the issue. Tom is founder and coordinator of the Referee and Match Official Research Network which was formed as a result of the widely published research from a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the subject of referees and match officials in sport, including a book he just published about match officials and abuse. Tom has worked with a number of high profile sporting organisations such as UEFA, The Premier League, the MCC and the International Netball Federation (INF).

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In this episode, Ale, Jack & Benji interviewed Carol Anne Chenard. Carol Anne is a decorated international referee from Canada. She officiated at the 2011 and 2015 Women World Cup, 2012 & 2016 Olympic Games. In 2016 she officiated the final between Sweden and Germany. Carol Anne was set to go to her third World Cup in France in 2019, but days before leaving for it she was diagnosed with breast cancer. With her, we discussed her refereeing journey and how she dealt with her diagnosis and how that impacted her and how she had a fantastic mindset throughout her whole career: control what you can and put the effort and energy in the places that can make a difference.

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In this episode Ale, Jack & Benji met with 3 members of the RefCoach Community: Marc from Melbourne, Grisha from the UK and Ryan from Canada. They talked with them about the RefCoach community, their experience with refereeing and how RefCoach has impacted them as referees.

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On today's episode, Ale, Jack and Benji welcome Simon Lount. Simon has had an excellent and well travelled career across the world, culminating in being an assistant referee at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. With Simon, we talk through his career, from the beginnings starting refereeing in England as part of a college course, to moving to New Zealand and making his way through the domestic ranks, refereeing with Jack on the A League, being awarded his FIFA badge, and, finally reaching the pinnacle of his career, refereeing at the 2018 Russia World Cup. Simon talked about his journey and how the importance of relationships and support from his loved ones enabled him to chase his dreams in the refereeing world.

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In this episode, Ale, Jack & Benji have a chat with Crawford Allan, Scotland’s Head of Referees. Crawford refereed the Scottish Premier League for over 10 years and has international experience as a fourth official in the Champions and Europa League. With his 29 years of experience in the refereeing world, he is now in charge of the referees in Scotland, looking after their development and performance.

With Crawford, we talked about how COVID impacted referees, their education and training in Scotland, how he managed his relationships moving from one of the referees to their manager and his stories and anecdotes from his career as a referee, from telling off Luis Figo to getting changed in his car because stuck in traffic on his way to a cup final.

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Our guest for this episode is Jim Ouliaris who has had a remarkable refereeing career spanning 37 Years of involvement as a referee, instructor and assessor. As an Assistant Referee he reached the FIFA panel and officiated at the Confederations Cup, The Asian Champions League final as well as hundreds of games In the Australian National league. Jim is now an assessor and instructor on the A-League and for the AFC, which he balances with his work as a teacher and assistant principal at a high school in Melbourne.

We talked with Jim about how the role of technology has evolved in football, his passion for coaching and his true purpose of supporting referees when he coaches at all levels from grassroots to the international stage.

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In this week's episode, Ale, Jack and Benji welcome Daniel Dymond, a Sports & Performance psychologist. Daniel has worked with athletes and organisations, such as the Adelaide Australian Football Club, Golf Australia and the athlete mental health app Arete.

With Daniel we talked about the psychology of performance, moving on when making mistakes, being more compassionate to ourselves and how refereeing sometimes is a game of incomplete information, very much like poker.

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In this week's episode, Ale, Jack and Benji welcome Christina Unkel, PRO and ex-FIFA referee, Attorney at law, Referee Analyst on CBS HQ, Mother and co-owner of a gym. Christina talked with them about balancing all her activities in her life, how being a referee helps her being an attorney and about her endeavour to educate the public about the Laws of The Game via her role as an analyst. 

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