News

Last week I was delighted to be invited to Lisbon by the Cue Action Snooker Academy owner Nelson Batista who asked the EBRSA to organize and run a refereeing seminar in his club. Both myself and Stevie Starkie travelled to Portugal to present the seminar from the 25th to 27th of July where we had 9 candidates.

Stevie and Myself worked with the candidates over the weekend and at the examinations we passed five new class 3 referee’s including Miguel Angela Santos, Miguel Sancho, Miguel Goncalves, Andre Santos and Nelson Batista himself who adds this title to his European Coaching status after he was approved by PJ Nolan as a coach last year. Miguel Angela Santos will now serve as the head referee in Portugal and we are considering the remaining four candidates as trainee referee’s until the next examination opportunity.

While in Lisbon I also had the opportunity to meet with Ricardo Salgado, the current President of the Portugal Billiards & Snooker Federation (PBSF) together with the vice president Nuno Santos.

They explained that PBSF is working very hard to promote the Snooker in Portugal and that they are using Nelson’s Academy for coaching the Juniors and now as you could see for running seminars for new referees.

We also discusses the possibility of the PBSF orgainsing various international events and inparticular a possible PTC event in Lisbon.

I would like to thank Nelson and his business partner Miguel Angelo Santos (PBSF Head Referee) and Sila for their hospitality over the weekend and especially the excellent Portuguese food..!!