Sport officiating is exciting and very stressful occupation, especially in football. Referees must continuously maintain a high level of physical but also psychological preparation to endure various pressures. Officials must develop mental skills, which enable them to make right decisions, manage the game efficiently, deal adequately with players, and to avoid mistakes that might undermine the game, their credibility and consistency. Despite many high-level football officials recognize the importance of mental skills ; their preparation usually covers only physical part. Recently, Croatian football association (CFA) had recognized that, and we investigated the need for psychological preparation in 50 Croatian highest-level football referees. The results showed that 98% officials consider psychological preparation as one of crucial areas, but 88% had no experience with it. Also, 48 referees reported that they would like to collaborate with sport psychologist and attend psychological education. Referees specified the main psychological problems in officiating. Primarily it was coping with stress and external pressures (29%), decline of concentration (16%), fear of mistake/failure (16%), pressure (13%), anger (6%), anxiety (5%) and arousal (4%). They also indicated areas to be covered within their psychological preparation: coping with stress (29%), concentration/attention problems (24%), mental preparation before the match (13%), relaxation (11%), emotion and arousal control (11%). The short test of concentration skills for officials was administered (Deshaies, 2003). The results confirmed the mentioned problems (M=60, 32, SD=5, 974) indicating the need for target practice in concentration skills. The younger football referees (<35 yrs.) are significantly more often distracted with bad decisions of their assistants [F(1, 46)=3, 746, p=0.05] than older colleagues. Based on these results, CFA organized periodical psychological workshops for elite referees within their obligate biannual licensing procedure.

Psihologija