appointed as officials by the world governing body of soccer, FIFA.

The honour has been bestowed on the only two FIFA-listed referees currently operating in local soccer, Esten Curtis and Stuart Crockwell, both of whom are Grade One officials.

The linesmen named to act for the first time in this team capacity are Cal Simons and Gregory Simons. Cal Simons is a Grade Two referee and Gregory Simons a Grade Three although there are no grade requirements for linesman as far as FIFA are concerned.

The four officials fall into a new format, recently instituted by FIFA, which calls for teams of officials to be made available for international duty.

Under the previous format a local FIFA-listed referee who was appointed to an international event was accompanied by two linesmen chosen at random by the Bermuda Football Association, but this will no longer be the case.

In future if Curtis is appointed to an international match, Crockwell will automatically travel as his back-up and vice versa. And Cal and Gregory Simons will accompany them as linesmen for the game.

Curtis has been a FIFA-listed referee since 1989 while Crockwell only recently made the grade.

Gregory Grimes, president of Bermuda Football Referees' Association, said he hoped that the appointments would encourage others to join the ranks of the BFRA.

"As far as the BFRA are concerned having these four appointed is just the first step. We will be looking forward to having other people recommended to the BFA to be forwarded to FIFA for the same reason next season.

"It's good that we now have a full complement of people on their list.

Hopefully this will encourage others to come forward and referee because the opportunities that arise out of these appointments are tremendous. These officials can travel all over the world to do matches.'' Grimes wouldn't speculate whether FIFA would employ any locals as officials at the forthcoming Pan-Am Games in Argentina, but indicated that the fact that they were on the FIFA-list made them eligible.

The BFRA currently have 25 active members and the president hoped that the recent FIFA listings would persuade current members to work harder at improving and would also attract new members.

"The numbers that we have active now are totally insufficient for our domestic programme and recruiting new members is an ongoing process for us.

Let's hope that our numbers will be better next season,'' added the president.

Stuart Crockwell