DOHA: The second FIFA promising Referees' course kicked off at the Intercontinental Hotel Doha on Monday morning. The five-day event, hosted by the Qatar Football Association (QFA), will end on March 1. A similar course will be held from March 11 to 15 at Qatar Sports Club Stadium.   The opening ceremony on Monday was attended by Hani Taleb Ballan, Deputy Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Massimo Busacca, the FIFA head of Refereeing, and Naji Al Juwaini, Executive Director of QFA's Referee's Department.   The event was attended by 40 referees from the three confederations - AFC, OFC and UEFA. Out of the 40 attendees, 21 participants are in referees' courses while 19 are for VAR.   Top referees attending include Najjar Al-Dosari, Ahmad Al-Kaf, Adham Mukhadema and Ammar Al-Junaibi.   The current session is the third of the international referees workshop hosted by Doha in recent times. Last month (Jan 3-15), Doha hosted the referees who will feature in the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France later this summer.   Hani Taleb Ballan said on Monday: "We are very proud to host this workshop in Qatar. This is an extension of the many courses we have hosted previously. It is indeed a source of happiness and pride for QFA to host such great experts in this field. At the same time, it is a great responsibility for QFA to do more in the future and we thank FIFA for its great support and confidence in Qatar."   He added: "The opportunity is open to the promising referees to further develop and improve their technical levels through continuous hard work at this course. The program includes many activities, events and daily exercises for five days, which will assist the referees to move ahead in this careers."   The course in Doha aims at developing referees and helping them to improve their abilities and readiness to manage matches at FIFA's competitions, Ballan said. They include 13 referees from Asia, 2 from Oceania and 25 from Europe.   The first day's activities included a theoretical lecture presented by Massimo Busacca who touched a number of topics including fitness matters and use of VAR.