In the nearest future Georgia will have another Fiba referee. The tests and seminars, held in Bosnia, and readiness of the Georgian Basketball National Federation guarantee this.
Mikheil Vartanov already has a license of Fiba, but only in 3×3 basketball for now. The capital city of Bosnia, Sarajevo hosted the 2019 Potential Fiba Referees Camp, on april 5-8, in which 17 referees participated. They were presented to Fiba by national basketball federations as the referees who are ready for the international license.
The point is, that the system of receiving the Fiba license has changed and this does not happen through any specific exam or test. The test-practical camps for potential Fiba referees are periodically held and Fiba will select the referees who will be granted a license in the future. Fiba’s instructors are examining referees in different ways during these camps. Those who successfully surmount these tests and successfully continue refereeing in the national championships, will get the international license for 2 years. After these 2 years, the referees should still have high ratings in the matches held in their country, and of course they should be successfully participating in the occasional camps organized by Fiba.
Before traveling to Sarajevo, Vartanov was trained both theoretically and practically by experienced specialists, the only Georgian Fiba Commissioner Merab Ratishvili and Serbian specialist Dragan Neskovic and he successfully passed all the tests and exams in Sarajevo. Mikheil Vartanov also refereed Bosnia’s official under-age championships and deserved positive evaluation of experienced instructors – George Piperkov and Andrey Ellen. This means, Vartanov received the Fiba mandate, now everything depends on his desire to receive the Fiba license.
Vartanov’s professionalism is giving us the hope, that he will continue active and most importantly successful work and another Fiba referee will be added to the Georgian referees soon, in 2019.
