Malta Rugby League and their cluster nations have completed their activities in the EU-backed Training and Education Portal project, following a level 1 match official course in Marsa. The course was led by RLEF Match Official tutor Phil Smith, and attended by local official Jean Pierre Zarb, Norway’s Adrian Seglem, Serbia’s Radoslav Novakovic and Ukraine’s Roman Bykhov. 

“It was good to sit down with all the match officials from the previous day’s international to discuss and review the game,” said Smith. “This is an important element of development for officials and the course allowed us time to analyse the situations that occurred and implement actions as a way of improving ourselves. The co-operation we saw, in both the practical sessions and the classroom, bodes well for all involved.” 

The TEP is a three-year, €723.000 investment into capacity building through good governance and technical training, funded by €466.000 from the EU’s Erasmus+ project and the remainder from the RLIF and five of its full members. It is intended to build the knowledge and skills of the RLEF’s 21 European members, divided into six regional clusters, through high quality training and mentoring, while granting opportunities to share experiences amongst fellow Europeans dedicated to rugby league development.