Ontario Soccer and Froster Active Kids are pleased to announce a new Youth Leadership initiative that will kick-off with the upcoming 2020 outdoor season.
Driven by the current Ontario Soccer 2019-2021 Strategic Plan, Youth Leadership and Long Term Officials Development are key areas of focus. The Froster Active Kids – Match Officials Young Leaders program will support Ontario Soccer’s commitment to the advancement of young leaders throughout our soccer community.
The first step towards breaking down barriers to participation for the over 1,500 young leaders that annually enrol in Ontario Soccer’s Small Sided Match Official Clinics, will be to promote the next generation of Leaders. Froster Active Kids has provided seed funding so that every 2020 Small Sided Match Official graduate will receive a free Young Leaders Match Official Shirt.
This quality Performance Shirt, produced by Ontario Soccer’s apparel partners from Admiral and co-branded with Froster Active Kids, will be worn in place of the Black Referee Shirt. This comes pre-sublimated with the Ontario Soccer badge, which reduces the workload of the Club and Ontario Soccer.
“We applaud our partners at Froster Active Kids for their vision in helping to remove barriers for participation for thousands of our budding young community leaders to start their journey as Match Officials,” said Bjorn Osieck, Ontario Soccer Director of Business Operations. “Together we will empower these young leaders to be able to pursue their dreams of becoming high-level match officials, while looking the part in a top quality Admiral Performance Shirt.”
All Small Sided clinic graduates will be provided with a special discount code to order their free shirt online at soccerx.com by their Clinic host, upon their successful graduation from the clinic. Participants will be responsible for a shipping and handling fee of $7.99 and will also have access to further equipment on the SoccerX Referee store. The Discount code will be provided to the Clinic Host by Ontario Soccer staff upon graduation of all successful participants.
“We are removing the visual of the typical black referee shirt and the perception that this young person’s role is just that of a rule enforcer. We need to impress upon everyone that this young person in the middle of the game is increasing their leadership skills, and learning every time they go on the field,” said Nicky Pearson, Ontario Soccer’s Senior Manager of Match Official Development. “We hope that this will resonate with the spectators and coaches, and they will understand that these officials are developing just as their players are, and are there to do their best for the game.”
If you have any further questions, please contact Nicky Pearson.