28th January 2011 - Oceânico Group welcomed the Irish Football Association Referee Development group to the Amendoeira Sports Club at the Amendoeira Golf Resort in the Algarve, Portugal for their annual training camp.

The training venue was chosen by Alan Snoddy, IFA Referee Development Officer who was an international referee for many years and refereed two matches in the FIFA World Cup (1986 and 1990). His current role supports all refereeing activities in Northern Ireland with a focus on recruitment, rentention and promoting refereeing.

He visited the Amendoeira Sports Club at the end of 2010 and felt it offered all the facilities they required. Once the group had arrived and settled in, he confirmed, "It’s tremendous. Everyone is very pleased."

Fifty top referees and referee assistants made up the group, in addition to referee assessors, former match officials who assess the referees according to FIFA and UEFA guidelines. As part of a UEFA’s referee development activities, Alan Snoddy is a mentor for Serbian Milorad Mazic, who became a FIFA referee in 2009, and who also attended the training camp.

This training camp is unlike other professional team training camps due to the theoretical aspects: the group attended sessions including "Bribery and Corruption", "Offside or not!" and "Laws of the Game", and analysed video clips of real life referee decisions – both good ones and bad ones. The theoretical sessions were held in privacy in the main building of the Amendoeira Sports Club with light refreshments on offer during the breaks.

The outdoor training took place on the full size football pitch at the Amendoeira Sports Club, where the group was put through its paces by the training staff to improve fitness and team work. These annual camps are invaluable to the IFA Referee Development programme, allowing the referees to attend the theoretical training sessions run by IFA officials on the FIFA list of referees such as Mark Courtney, Ray Crangle and Alan Black, and offering them the opportunity to discuss their experiences and learn more.

In addition to the full size football pitch, the Amendoeira Sports Club offers a fully equipped gymnasium, two five-a-side Astroturf pitches, six tennis courts (two floodlit), beach volleyball/football and two lawn bowling greens (one crown green and one flat green).

Professional warm weather training packages are available for football, Gaelic football, rugby and hurling. Oceânico tailor-make each warm weather training package to suit the client, focusing on training, meals and transfers, and can also arrange off-site excursions and team building activities.

Oceânico has already been host to a variety of top teams including Aston Villa FC, Sunderland AFC (Summer 2009 and 2010), the Football Association of Ireland ladies teams (under 19’s and under 17’s) and Kerry GAA. Several fixtures have been held at the club including matches between Dutch Premier League teams Ajax FC and Groningen FC.

The Amendoeira Golf Resort also boasts two championship golf courses, one designed by Sir Nick Faldo and one designed by Christy O’Connor Jnr., the floodlit, 9 hole par 3 Oceânico Academy course and the Amendoeira Golf Academy & Fitting Suite, including: a driving range, a putting green and a long and short game practice area. Lessons and golf tuition packages are also available as well as custom club fittings in the fitting suite.

For more information, please contact Michelle Collins at the Oceânico Group on:
00351 282 767 546
email: michelle.collins@oceanicogroup.com