Referees fit and ready to go

One team have already passed their first test at the UEFA European Under-21 Championship and are now geared towards graduating with honours from the tournament itself.

Success
That is the message from Falkenberg in western Sweden where the championship's ninth team – comprising six referees, eight assistant referees and two fourth officials – negotiated their opening assignment on Friday. While the eight competing nations wait until Monday or Tuesday to see action, the match officials successfully completed the referees' pre-tournament fitness test at their hotel and training base, confirming their availability for duties at the 12 group games, semi-finals and final.

'Magnificent condition'
UEFA Referees Committee member Hugh Dallas is confident this was just the first in a string of impressive performances to come over the next two weeks. "Every one of the assistant referees and referees passed the fitness test – I looked at them last night and they all look in magnificent condition," he said. "That shows real professionalism but we would expect that from these guys, that is why they have been selected."

Career move
Dallas believes that the 16 appointed match officials are taking an important step towards careers in élite international football – not unlike the U21 players they will be overseeing. "It is very similar to the players from the refereeing perspective – you have young players who are trying to progress to the full international squad and the referees are no different," explained Dallas, himself a former international referee. "We have referees from our Premier Development category and referees from category two, who have been given an opportunity to try and impress and see if they are good enough to step to the next level – we are quite sure they won't let us down.

Top competition
"Some of them have refereed in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, so we have some really promising talent here. We have told them [to ignore] that there is an 'Under' in front of the competition – it is the second highest level of tournament in Europe as far as international teams go, and they will give it the respect that the tournament deserves."

Facilities
If the refereeing selection has caught Dallas's eye, so too the choice of venue for this U21 final round. "We have excellent facilities here [in Falkenberg]," said the Scotsman, who will act as a referee observer during the championship. "We have a beautiful hotel on the beach on the west coast of Sweden with all the facilities that our top referees at EURO 2008 experienced during their time in Switzerland."

The following match officials will form the pool of refereeing talent: