Westmeath GAA have bucked a national trend by recruiting 58 new match officials who will begin their careers at under-age level this season.
To assist this unprecedented wave of new referees coming on board, the county will provide nine advisors to help them and add an extra layer of assistance for the new recruits.
Westmeath recently held a training course in Athlone where 19 new referees attended for football. In addition, there were three courses staged in Mullingar, one for hurling and two more football sessions with 18 referees attending each module.
The new referees will be unveiled at a presentation this Friday night and will wear different jerseys in the coming weeks and months to indicate they are part of a development panel.
They will officiate at Under-12 and Under-14 level across both codes with the ultimate aim of bringing them to Under-16 level and beyond.
Attracting nearly 60 new referees is no mean feat, especially in the current climate where there is a chronic shortage of officials in many counties.
Recently, Tipperary GAA launched their own recruitment drive, stating the urgent need to find new blood.
"With the growth in popularity of Gaelic games, the demand for match officials is increasing," a statement said.
"With over 4,000 games being played in our county on an annual basis, the role of the referee is a particularly important cog of the wheel to ensure all games take place. However, we are seeing a drop in our current crop of officials, due to injury, work life balance and age-related factors."
The statement added that in 2023, a number of club games had to be cancelled due to no referee available. It also reported that, out of the 71 clubs in Tipperary, there were 13 clubs without referees.
"This represents 18% which is not acceptable. Our target is that every club has an active referee. We are at a crisis in Tipperary in relation to the number of qualified active referees," the statement continued.
Mayo GAA chairman Seamus Tuohy was of a similar mind when he told a recent county board meeting that clubs who do not supply new referees may be hit with increased county board levies.
Tuohy described the update of new referees as 'very poor' as the county board meeting heard that just three people had signed up for referee training since an appeal was issued at December’s county convention.
At that meeting, the chair stated that it was ‘not sustainable’ for Mayo GAA to officiate 3,500 adult and underage games a year with a panel of approximately 60 referees.
Wicklow have said they were in "dire straits’ over the past year in terms of the number of referees available to take charge of adult games.
And the Leitrim GAA Referee Committee is urgently appealing for clubs to supply referees to the county’s club games with nearly 50% of clubs in the county not providing active referees, putting huge pressure on the existing roster of officials.
This has led to referees from other counties being called in to take charge of games.
In Westmeath, they decided to tackle the dilemma head on. Referees’ coordinator Sean Sheridan and the Westmeath Minor Board Committee under the guidance of their Chairman Barry Kelly (former All-Ireland hurling referee) and secretary Peter Collins took lead roles in putting an onus on their clubs to provide two referees for their own club U12 matches.
Failure to do so would result in loss of home advantage for fixtures at that level. Clubs responded in style with former Cavan All-Ireland referee Brian Crowe, Barry Kelly and Niall Ward tutoring pitch sessions and also delivering courses.
On Friday night, the 58 new referees will receive specially designed new jerseys from four-time All-Ireland football final referee, Paddy Collins. Last year’s All-Ireland hurling final referee John Keenan will also help with the presentations.
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