New sporting year, new possibilities |04 January 2022

Eddy Maillet paved the way for local referees at the Afcon

The 2022 sporting year starts well for Seychelles with two football officials ‒ referee Bernard Camille and assistant referee James Emile ‒ having already travelled to Cameroon to officiate in the TotalEnergies African Cup of Nations ‒ the competition that parades the continent’s best teams and players.

The TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) kicks off on Sunday January 9 with the match between hosts Cameroon and Burkina Faso at the Olembe Stadium in Yaoundé.

The selection of the two officials by the Confederation of African Football (Caf) is a boost to Seychelles’ sports at a time when our sportsmen and women had seen little action locally in the space of two years.

For Camille, 46 and who became an international referee in 2012 and has attended every Caf senior competition since 2013, this is his fifth Afcon appearance as a referee in 10 years, after making his debut in 2013 in South Africa, followed by 2015 in Equatorial Guinea, 2017 in Gabon and 2019 in Egypt.

As for James Emile, this is his first call-up for the Afcon after officiating at seven Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) tournaments, Afcon Under-17, Afcon Under-23 and African Nations Championships (Chan). He officiated in the finals of all these competitions except at the Chan.

The 30-year-old have the possibility to officiate at seven more Afcons provided he can maintain his level or better still up his game to rival with the best in the world, now that he is among the best on the African continent.

Camille is not the only Seychellois referee to officiate at the Afcon. In fact, it is Eddy Maillet who paved the way for the other Seychellois officials to take charge of matches at this level when he got his first call-up for the Afcon in 2004 in Tunisia and refereed two matches.

Like Camille, Maillet made five appearances in the Afcon following up on his 2004 appearance with displays in Egypt in 2006 when he took charge of two group matches, refereed the quarterfinal encounter between defending champions Tunisia and Nigeria and was chosen as the fourth official for the final between hosts Egypt and Ivory Coast.

In Accra, Ghana in 2008, he took charge of three matches. He was named as centre referee for the opening game between hosts Ghana and Guinea and also took charge of the semifinal between Egypt and Ivory Coast. He was twice chosen as fourth official, and one of those matches was the final between Egypt and Cameroon.

In 2010 in Angola, Maillet took charge of a group match and refereed the quarterfinal between Algeria and Ivory Coast.

In the 2012 Afcon co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, he refereed two games and worked as the fourth official in three others including the final.

The celebrated Seychellois referee also officiated in the AFC Asian Cup, the 2009 Fifa Confederations Cup in South Africa and for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. His first game as referee in the 2010 World Cup was in the Honduras v Chile opening round match on June 16, 2010.

Maillet, who was a full international referee for the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) from 2001 to 2012, is now the Confederation of African Football’s (Caf) director of refereeing.

Speaking to Sports NATION upon his return from the World Cup in South Africa, Maillet said: “I feel good and proud to be seen as a role model. I’ve received words of encouragement from a lot of people and I thank them from deep down.”

Assistant referee Jason Damoo has also officiated at the Afcon and that was in 2012 when it was co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Damoo, whose career as an official was cut short for health reasons, is now a match assessor with Caf.

Boxing referee/judge Edmond Folette

Not only football has produced such good officials who have travelled the world over and represented the country in many big competitions. Boxing referee/judge Edmond Folette made two appearances at the Olympic Games, with the first coming in 2000 in Sydney, Australia, followed by a second in 2008 in Beijing, China.

Folette, who made his international debut in 1992 during the King’s Cup in Thailand, officiated at the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Commonwealth Games in 1998, Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 and Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006 in Australia. In Melbourne, he finished among the top-five referees out of 26 and refereed the 48-kg category final won by Namibian Jafet Uutomi against John Darran Langley of England.

He also judged two other bouts in the finals.

“This was one of my best performances and it proved to be a good competition for me,” Folette told Sports NATION on his return home.

Folette has also officiated at the World Championships, All-Africa Games, and Indian Ocean Islands Games.

Athletics officials Giovanna Rousseau and Fabien Belle

Track and field athletics has produced two top quality officials in Giovanna Rousseau and Fabien Belle.

Belle, who became an area technical official (ATO) in 2011, officiated at the African Junior Athletics Championship in Botswana in 2011 and in Mauritius in 2013.

He has officiated in a number of other competitions as an official.

Giovanna Rousseau was an international technical official (ITO) and officiated at many international competitions like the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, Germany in 2007; Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India in 2010, All-Africa Games in 2007 in Algeria, World Athletics Championships and the Olympic Games.

She has also received the ‘Plaque of Merit’ for ‘Meritorious service to the cause of World Athletics’ in 2011 from former International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) Lamine Diack who passed away last year.

Can Seychelles sportsmen and women match the officials’ achievements?

Those are just some of the top Seychellois officials.

The question now is why can’t we have as many top Seychellois athletes who are able of conquering the world?

It is true we have produced Indian Ocean, African and Francophonie champions, but we are yet to claim gold at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games and World Championships.

Why?

The answer is quite simple.

Many of the officials have shared with yours in writing how tough it is to reach the highest level. They say it involves a lot of physical and mental training, tough and rigorous medical and fitness evaluations.

Performance of officials are now measured using different criteria, medical check-ups which include a physical examination, and the anthropometry or body mass index (BMI).

Officials are also evaluated on their psychic stability, determination and courage, competence and ability to take the right decision in the shortest period of time.

This involves a lot of training.

I personally have seen Seychellois officials training more than athletes.

The only way for Seychellois sportsmen and women to reach the highest possible level is to train like professionals even though they aren’t pros themselves and have to go to work.

Research have shown that for athletes to reach their maximum potential they have to warm up properly, train more than once or twice a week to make adaptations in the body, don’t go too hard too often (use high-intensity training periodically to improve cardiovascular function, but not too often because it can increase injury risk and spike stress hormones), master the movements to become great at your sport, work on your mentality (develop the ability to dig deep to push through the mental barriers that hold back performance when training or competing), and focus on recovery (taking an ice bath aid recovery and allows you to train harder and faster sooner).

Seychelles has a few athletes who have been successful in semi-professional and professional leagues in Europe and it is up to locally based athletes to get in touch with them and learn from them.

There is nothing wrong with learning from others. And if you want to get a leg up on the competition, it is vital that you train your brain to improve your mental abilities which are critical to sports performances. These abilities include awareness, attention and decision-making which are beneficial for identifying key play opportunities, filtering out distractions, responding more quickly to plays and predicting your opponent’s moves.

Until Seychellois athletes are able to behave and train hard and effectively like pros as well as get the necessary follow-up from professionals, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family’s new initiative dubbed ‘Road to Paris 2024/Los Angeles 2028 project – Bring the first Olympic medal home’ will remain just a project.

Let this new sporting year bring new possibilities and opportunities to all involved in sports in Seychelles.

Compiled by Gerard Govinden