Cecafa Secretary General, Nicholas Musonye has hailed regional referees for the improvement in their duties.

The Kenyan administrator noted that the improvement in refereeing standards by referee from the Cecafa region has eventually started to pay off.

He gave the example of referee from this region earning calls to officiate at the MTN Africa Nations Cup to be held in Ghana from January 20-February 10, 2008.

Musonye told Times Sport on Saturday that regional referees have improved a lot in their officiating and saluted them on behalf of the Cecafa body.

"Not only those that have been selected to officiate at next year’s Nations Cup but even this year’s Cecafa Cup referees have been spot on.

"Until this moment, no one (country) has raised any complaints concerning poor or perceived biased refereeing throughout the tournament and I think this is also an improvement towards our football in the region,” Musonye said.

However, Musonye urged those who have been selected from the Cecafa region to maintain their brilliancy and desist from anything that could keep them off the course at CAN Ghana 2008.

He noted, "Once they don’t impress in Ghana next year, then there shouldn’t expect being called for CAN/WC 2010.”

One centre referee, Uganda’s Mohammed Ssegonga and three assistant referees including, Rwanda’s Celestin Ntagungira a.k.a Abega , Eritrea’s Ogbamariam Angesom and Burundi’s Desire Gahungu are the only referees from the Cecafa region who were named by CAF among the 32 referees who will officiate at next year’s Nations’ Cup finals.

One referee and assistant referee will come from Asia and must be nominated by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) as per the exchange programme between the two confederations.   

Other referees include;
Centre-referees-  Maillet Eddy (Seychelles), Codjia Coffi  (Benin), Coulibaly Koman (Mali), Damon Jerome (South Africa), Benouza Mohamed (Algeria), Diatta Badara (Senegal), Evehe Divine (Cameroon), Sowe Modou (Gambia), Kotey Alex (Ghana), Djaoupe Kokou (Togo), El Arjoun Abderrahim (Morocco), Marange Kenias (Zimbabwe), Haimoudi Djamel (Algeria), Bennaceur Kacem (Tunisia), Nichimura Yuichi (Japan).
Assistants- Menkouande Evarist (Cameroon), Achik Redouane (Morocco), Hassani Bechir (Tunisia),Molefe Enock (South Africa), Manuel Candido Inacio (Angola), Pare Lossene (Burkina Faso), Konyoh Komi (Togo), Chichenga Kenneth (Zambia), Abdel Nabi Nasser Sadek (Egypt), Djezzar Brahim (Algeria), Edibe Peter (Nigeria), Sagara Toru (Japan), Jeong Hae Sang (Korea DPR)
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