Sri Lanka Squash has signed a partnership with World Squash Officiating (WSO), the joint initiative of the World Squash Federation (WSF) and the Professional Squash Association (PSA) to create an online education and assessment portal to standardise officiating qualifications worldwide.

Sri Lanka Squash is planning to use the framework and methods promoted by the WSO platform to build expertise, increase to popularity of refereeing, and broaden the awareness and appeal of squash to a much wider and younger audience.

In addition, Sri Lanka Squash hopes that the partnership will make officiating more accessible to aspiring referees.

WSO Manager Chris Nutley said: “We offer a warm welcome to our friends at Sri Lanka Squash and look forward to working with them and developing a long and fruitful partnership. We hope to help them build a solid refereeing base within the country who can service their array of domestic events and tournaments. It is also hoped that over time this will also lead to the emergence of some elite level referees who can go on and represent Sri Lanka on the world stage.”

Commenting on the partnership, Suren Kohombange, President of Sri Lanka Squash, said: “We at Sri Lanka Squash believe that having a good refereeing framework and skill development program is essential for our endeavour to popularise and broad base the game in the island. Analysing the content and the framework available with WSO platform impressed us and I believe it is ideal for the new generation of players and helps demystify the technical challenges faced by a referee professional.”

Secretary of Sri Lanka Squash, Eranga Alwis, added: “It’s a framework where continuous learning is available, and we see this as an ideal method of introducing the rules of the game and building a ground up refereeing pool for our future local and international tournaments.”

More information on Sri Lanka Squash.