Being a handball referee in an emerging country such as Ireland involves not just officiating matches but actively contributing to the establishment, growth, and promotion of handball within the region. It requires a passion for the sport, adaptability, and a commitment to playing a pivotal role in the development of handball.
The Georgian referee couple, Teziko Bzhalava and Gela Gveslesiani, have found their place in the Irish handball, and today you will know more about their story.
Irish handball has only one couple of referees who are keeping the senior league going, along with a few more referees who have not yet had the luck to be a referee couple as they are.
Teziko Bzhalava and Gela Gveslesiani are only 22 years old, two young referees who discovered their love for refereeing in their home country, Georgia.
Georgia, an emerging country that played against Ireland back in 2019 and that now is making its debut at the EHF EURO this January in Germany. This participation is marking its first appearance in history at the major championships for the georgians.
Now let's dive into their handball journey and see how it is for them to be referees in Ireland, what lessons they've learned, and what advice they have for those who would like to follow their path.
Teziko started playing handball in his hometown Poti, located on the eastern Black Sea coast in the west of Georgia.
At the age of 11, he began playing handball and then continued representing his city team, Golden Ram, thanks to his coaches Gela Zhvania, Temur Tchanturia, and Darejan Geferidze.
He played for six years in the junior league, then at 17 years old, he played for the national team, and once he got injured, his career finished.
Gela started playing in the junior league in 2015 for two years in his hometown Tskaltubo from west-central Georgia for the Prometheus Club. After two years, he decided to try refereeing, approaching coaches Noe Gogidze and Gela Janelidze. The coaches informed the Georgian federation and called him after a few months to referee the juniors. After a year, he began refereeing in the senior league, as the federation did not have enough referees.
Despite being from rival teams and not liking each other, the refereeing job united them. "I never imagined being friends."
Starting to referee the senior league was not easy for Gela. “It was very difficult because when someone sees that you are too young, everyone wants to take control—the coaches, the players because they are older than you. But I was trying to be in my position, and sometimes I had psychological moments as well, such as “I don't need this job because it's too difficult”, as the Georgians are very emotional sometimes. I was thinking to give up, but I said to myself that I need to do it if I love this job, so I continued.
This is the biggest experience. It was very difficult, but the most significant experience I had in Georgia. When I started, I was new, just one year is nothing. During this time, you just learn the referee rules, and then immediately I refereed the senior league matches, so it was very difficult and stressful as well.
At that time, I did not have a regular partner. I was refereeing with somebody else each match. So I was looking for a partner as the Georgian federation wanted me to represent European Handball Federation as a young referee, and I was actually 18 years old already. They asked me to find somebody to form a couple of referees and represent EHF in matches as part of the young referee program. I was looking for it and found Teziko. At that time, he got injured and his coach asked me if I needed a partner and mentioned him who was interested and wanted to give it a try. He was refereeing the junior league before and in 2018 we started working together. After this, he started to referee with me during the league as well, gaining the experience that I had.”
Since 2018 until 2022, they were the Georgian National Federation referees. In April 2022, Teziko decided to move to Ireland to apply for a visa and learn English. With that decision, it made Gela lose his partner. As he said, "Being a referee doesn't mean only to go to the matches and do the referee job, it's not like that. If you want to be a referee, you need to understand your partner, you need to have the same feeling. It's very necessary and mandatory to feel your partner. We are at the same level now. I don't have to look at my partner and see when we do the referring. I feel his decisions."
For two months, Gela did the refereeing alone and than decided to move to Ireland too. The connection with Irish Handball was through a georgian guy who used to play in Dublin International Handball Club. From there, he was directed to Vasile Golban and then to Tomas Martinonis and finally to João Ferreira, the Operations Director of the Irish Olympic Handball Association.
The meeting with the Irish Olympic Handball Association took place at University College Dublin during the summer training. At that time, the guys showed interest in working for IOHA, and IOHA expressed the willingness to be open to having them represent Ireland in the European Handball Federation matches in the young referees program.
They applied with their CV and got support from João and IOHA, as they say, "We were very excited for it. We got big support from them to represent Ireland in EHF matches."
As the contract with the Georgian federation finished, a new one started with IOHA.
The year 2023 gave them the opportunity to participate in two European Handball Federation referee courses. The first was in Prague in April, and the second was in Berlin in August. These were young referees' programs where they had to compete for available spots. They hope to participate again this year, for which they need to take a test, study the rules, and practice refereeing.
When they were working for the Georgian federation, they were nominated twice for the EHF young referees' courses, but the first time Teziko got a knee injury, and then COVID came, making it impossible to participate.
The course in Prague was a good experience, and as they mentioned, "The course was great. We had really good delegates, experience and the match was good as well. It was a kind of different level. There were junior championships in Prague, but the tournament was a great experience"
The second course nomination was at the end of August in Berlin. The tournament was much higher. "German handball is on the top, and we got very good experience—physical test, rule test, everything. Every time is different but actually works like that: when you arrive, you have a meeting, you have to do the rule test, physical test, and matches."
EHF also teaches young referees how to communicate with coaches. Gela mentions, "For me, it is difficult to be in the coach's position as I have never been one. The emotional moments, our opinions, our experiences. Sometimes it is very difficult to communicate with the coach because some of them are very aggressive, some don't want to hear your opinion, they have only their opinions and think they are right. At least, it is good, we have to communicate with the coaches as well. It's a very good point for the referees and a very good point for the coach as well to hear the opinion of the referees.
There is a difference between referees and coaches, as the coach needs to take care of 16 players. We do different jobs, but we need to understand each other. Sometimes the coaches don't want to understand the referee's opinion; they have their own opinion, they don't want to hear us, they don't respect us sometimes.
We had some coaches in Georgia who did not respect our opinion, and it was very difficult during the match.
If you want to keep the match calm, for example, we are human and can make mistakes as well, but you don't have to show that you are nervous. You need to show to others that you are right even when you are not. You don't have to be nervous about what you did, you don't have to think about it. It is very difficult to be calm all the time when you make mistakes. You think not to do that mistake anymore, and it is very difficult. When you make a mistake and everyone is telling you that you are wrong during the match, you need to stay in your position, that you are right. Sometimes we make mistakes and apologize, that's fine, but to keep the match calm as a referee, you need to be sure of your decisions even when you can be wrong sometimes. The psychological moment is difficult, but we will learn—the most challenging moment for referees."
Teziko adds, "When we started this course in Georgia, we always had more psychological moments. The referees have more emotional responsibility. Always saying to ourselves, step by step. Always be responsible. Sometimes it is very difficult."
Georgia and Ireland used to compete in emerging nations, with their last encounter in 2019. However, what sets these two countries apart now?
“In Georgia, handball is a more popular sport than in Ireland. It is at the same level but we have a national team as well. At this is higher level compared with Ireland, men’s and women’s teams qualified for EURO, and the IOHA doesn't have a national team. The matches, the league, are at the same level.
I really enjoy it here more than in Georgia. When you do the same thing with the same teams, it gets boring. When we got here, the style was different. Here the clubs have players from other countries, and you see different styles from different countries. It's much more interesting than one style.
In Georgia, we have a lot of junior championships for girls, boys, and schools championships as well. This is actually very mandatory because if you want to have a good future, you have to care about the young generation. If you want some results, you know, you have to start with the juniors and you have to put everything, all energy into the juniors to have some results in the future. Always school championships, all the time. So this is the good thing in Georgia compared with Ireland. We have lots of junior championships.
About the senior league, to be honest about the care that we have as members of the IOHA, we have the most support from Ireland compared to Georgia. In Georgia, we had lots of times situations with crazy players and coaches where it was very difficult. We did not feel support from them and it was very stressful.
We had lots of reports but no support came from them. Here in Ireland, we did not have situations to do any reports, but we got big support from João Ferreira, Andrea Ongaro, Caroline Nerbas. To be honest, I like to work more with IOHA than Georgia as I enjoy with IOHA more. If you have crazy coaches and players and don't feel the support from your federation is kind of stressful. You have to feel the motivation, somebody has to support you.
In Georgia, we had Levan Gelashvili the EHF delegate, Tamar Chogovadze the EHF Beach Handball delegate, Lana Margiani, Ina Chkuaseli and Vakhtand Beriashvili. They were our teachers and our support. They taught us lots of things about how to have good communication with the coaches and players."
Gela and Teziko want to make handball more famous in Ireland and support IOHA in this process. "We always support them, and they support us back. If we want to get some results, we have to work together. I know that there we are only one couple of referees, but actually, it's not the biggest problem at this moment. The biggest problem is that we need more players, many more players, new generations. New generations that will play in the future, this is the most important. Last year we had lots of school championships. It was amazing, very good. Our dream is to be famous as EHF referees, and we will be very proud to represent Ireland."
Between the biggest challenge for them is to stay with IOHA. "We don't want to deal with Georgia because we did not have support. Step by step, we try to do our best here."
Being asked what the key success for Georgia to qualify for EURO is, the guys said that, "We have a national team as handball is one of the most popular sports. People are more interested in playing handball, more options to get players from different regions. Georgia has very good players. I don't know the reason, but from my side as a referee, I always think, as a referee. It's very difficult to answer the question. Maybe the population that knows the sport, the interest of the population, about the money as well. If you have a national team and want to keep that, you need money as well. To go somewhere, to get more matches, to travel, and play with other teams to get experiences. The Georgia team had lots of experiences with the European teams. Maybe this is the reason that gets the level and the stats."
As experienced referees, they have some advices for those who would like to step into the referee world.
Gela advice is to "Believe in your dream. The referee job is not only about refereeing. If you want to do it and like to do it, do it. It doesn't matter if you are paid or not. In Georgia, we did not get a lot of money, but it was our dream. We had lots of difficult moments in Georgia, but we continued to dream for our dream.
I was watching all the time the matches from the referee's side. To be honest, if someone is asking me what's the most famous club from EHF, I don't really know, but I know who the top referees are.
All the time try to watch the matches from the referee's side and not from the player's side. We have to get experience, and this from TV as well. All the time, watch matches. This is very good, you take a lot of experience. And all the time when you're new, I know the psychology moments of the players, they try to take control of you. You have to be careful, need to be sure of the decisions even if they are wrong, you need to keep the positions. Even if they are not correct, stay strong and don't give the control of yourself. You need to control yourself, even of your partner.
The biggest difficult moment in handball, sometimes we referees, see something that nobody else can see. We had lots of situations where we saw something that we did know is something there, but no one else sees it. This is very difficult to prove to everyone that your decision is correct, but you know in your mind it's correct, even if no one saw it. You have to stay strong and say to everybody, "No guys, I saw that, I'm the referee here, so please everyone calm down." That's the psychology moment. The beginners have to be strong, don't let someone else to control you and just enjoy it."
While Teziko says that "It is a very difficult question. First of all, you need to like it. If you played the sport and love it, you can always do everything step by step. Believe in yourself, keep good connections with the players and coaches for better communication. It's very important when you enter the court to whistle, just look at the court, think about the handball, and focus on the match."
The young Georgian referees, Gela and Teziko, aspire to represent Ireland internationally, embodying a passion for handball and a dedication to its growth in their adopted country, Ireland. Their journey reflects the challenges of being pioneers in handball scene but also highlights the rewards of perseverance and self-belief. Their advice to future referees echoes the importance of confidence, resilience, and finding joy in the referee position despite its challenges. We are happy to have them for accepting to talk with us, and we hope that other interested referees can join them.
Are you interested in becoming one of the Irish handball referees? Contact the IOHA and let them know about your interest. With or without experience, your willingness to learn and get involved will be considered for such an important decision that is needed in the Irish league and the Irish Handball development.
Dare to inquire and relish a different facet of handball by becoming a referee.
Comentários