On March 9, in the springtime, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) announced that it had invited Ms. Zhang Lingling, a veteran in the soccer industry, to join the team and take up the important role of Director of Referee Fitness.
Excerpts from the official announcement:
CFA has invited Ms. Zhang Lingling to be the Director of Referee Fitness, aiming to strengthen the physical training of referees and help the growth of professionals.
Zhang Lingling, a woman with both qualifications and strength, used to be active as an international assistant referee and devoted herself to research and teaching in the field of refereeing physical fitness after her retirement. Currently, she is not only an Associate Professor in the Football Teaching and Research Department of Shandong Sports Institute, but also a Master's Degree student of Shanghai Sports Institute and a PhD student of Universiti Putra Malaysia, with a strong background in Physical Education and Pedagogy.
In her refereeing career, Ms. Zhang Lingling has been involved in enforcing a number of international competitions, such as the 2011 Women's World Cup and the 2010 Asian Games, etc. She has won a number of honorary awards, including the AFC's 2009 Best Assistant Referee of the Year and the CFF's 2013 Golden Flag of the Year.
After her retirement, Ms. Zhang Lingling did not stop, she chose to continue her education and became a member of the FIFA Referee Fitness Instructor Training. Her hard work and study made her stand out in the team of Asian physical fitness instructors, and she has been a referee physical fitness instructor for many Olympic Games, Women's World Cup and other events.
As a contracted instructor for the FIFA Global Football Referee Development Program, Ms. Zhang Lingling is not only responsible for basic referee fitness training in many Asian countries, but also participates in the training of referee candidates for the International Women's World Cup, remotely monitoring and coaching the candidate referees.
According to the work plan jointly formulated by CFA and Ms. Zhang Lingling, in the future appointment period, she will formulate scientific training programs for referees of different levels of leagues for both men and women, track the physical condition of key referees, improve the database of referees' physical information, improve the physical level of CFA's referees, and promote the implementation of the referees' physical training work, to discover more potential referee talents, and lay a solid foundation for the reform and development of the soccer industry. It also promotes the implementation of physical training for referees, explores more potential referee talents, and lays a solid foundation for the training of reserve forces for soccer reform and development.
