Spanish rugby league has graduated two match official tutors following a ground-breaking course in Guadassuar, Valencia as part of the EU-RLEF Leadership Devolution Project.

The match official seminar epitomised the objectives and aims of the 18-month project with, for the first time, a product of the programme - Italy’s Guido Bonatti - managing, assessing and judging the trainee tutors and subsequent Level 1 course entirely on his own.  

“I delivered the RLEF course to Ezequiel Perez and Tony Palacios (Spain’s head of match officials) and they removed any doubts I might have had on their knowledge of the laws of the game,” said Bonatti, who began officiating rugby league in 2012. In the afternoon we moved to the field and I showed them some new drills and helped them to plan properly the course on the following day. They then delivered the RLEF course precisely and made a very good presentation both during classroom work and on the field.”

Tony Palacios said, "From the point of view of the national school it is a big step to have autonomy in carrying out courses. Now we are growing and this speeds up all the arrangements to play in Spain".

Ezequiel Perez echoed his thoughts, "This is a big step for Spanish rugby league as it will allow us to develop officials in other emerging regions like Andalusia, Madrid and Catalonia."