Referees Kristo Tohver and Lina Lehtovaara on the path from grassroots to elite football
Friday, September 27, 2024
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During UEFA Grassroots Week, we spoke to top European officials Kristo Tohver and Lina Lehtovaara about their respective journeys from amateur football into refereeing and their advice for aspiring officials.
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Kristo Tohver was a football-mad 17-year-old when he was urged by his mother to take up refereeing.
"She found a referee course and asked me to go," Tohver explained. "I turned up and loved it. Quite quickly, I realised that managing a football match as a referee gave me a higher level of accomplishment than playing in a team."
Tohver refereed his first match in Estonia's top flight when he was just 20, before working his way up to becoming a FIFA referee. It was here that he hit a stumbling block.
"We didn't have the expertise or the resources in Estonia to teach us to be better referees," Tohver said. "So we started doing our own video analysis in our home league and developed it into a platform."
This analysis helped Tohver improve his performances, and he has since taken charge of matches in the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Nations League.
Lina Lehtovaara also started her journey at 17, having grown up in a family that loved football.
"It was a coincidence that I got into refereeing," she explained. "My younger brother was attending the course, so I went with him.
"I didn't get bitten by the refereeing bug straight away. It was when I began to feel more comfortable that I realised I liked it and wanted to do it more.
"In the beginning, I felt really nervous. Even blowing the whistle was hard. But, after more matches, I could do the basics and realised I wanted to become a good referee."
Lehtovaara is now a leading female referee, having officiated the 2022 UEFA Women's Champions League final between Barcelona and Lyon, as well as matches at UEFA Women's EURO 2022 and the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.
"I always had a lot of self-confidence growing up," she said. "But, as a teenage girl, it was not easy to go over to male players and show them a yellow card for shouting at me. It took time and courage to be able to build the character I needed to be a good referee.
"You cannot copy anyone – you need to have your own style. For me, I had self-confidence, and I didn't get influenced by others. Of course, I listened to the advice I got, and then picked out the bits that I knew would suit me."
"If there are any girls who have thought about becoming a referee, go out there and try. Hopefully you feel the joy. If you do, then you are on the right path, and anything is possible."
Tohver has another key piece of advice for young referees.
"If you can't admit your mistakes, that will stop you from learning and having the growth mentality you need," he said. "If you make a mistake, you should go back and try to work out why it happened."
Aspiring match officials can find out more information through UEFA's Be a Referee campaign, which aims to recruit 40,000 new officials across Europe each season.
"It's very important," Tohver said of the campaign. "It gives young people a chance to be involved in the game at a level they could never be as players. It's a real network."