Two BAFRA members have been selected to officiate at the inaugural IFAF Junior World Championships in Canton, Ohio.

Jim Briggs and David Parsons were chosen out of a potential field of 1000 candidates by the IFAF Officiating Committee to officiate at the tournament, which begins on June 27th and finishes on July 5th.

Hampshire-based Briggs (left) joined BAFRA as its 31st member in 1984. Since then, he has been assigned to 10 British bowl games (including BritBowl XXII as Side Judge), and has worked some of the most memorable games in British football history. Since 1987, he has edited the BAFA rulebook and the BAFRA/EFAF Manual of Football Officiating. He joined the EFAF panel in 1989, and during this time he has worked the EuroBowl final three times and the EFAF Cup Final twice. He also represented BAFRA and Great Britain at the 2003 IFAF World Cup, where he gained the ultimate honour of being assigned as Referee for the Championship Game between Japan and Mexico. He is the current BAFRA President, a role that he has held since 2006.

Parsons (right) joined BAFRA in November 1985 and has also established himself as one of Britain's top officials, working a comparable number of bowl games (including as Umpire on the same BritBowl XXII crew as Briggs). Parsons has been an EFAF official since November 2006 and has achieved a great deal in that time, working a EuroBowl semi-final in 2008. He has been dedicated to training new Scottish members for many years, and since 2004 has been a very successful BAFRA Director of Training. During that time, he has revitalised the BAFRA Convention and has helped it become an extremely important training event. He lives in Glasgow.

Parsons and Briggs join an incredibly experienced pool of officials, including Canadians Glenn Hill (Back Judge, 2008 Vanier Cup) and Ron Paluzzi (Referee, 2007 Vanier Cup), and Americans such as Bill LeMonnier (Referee, Big 10 Conference) and Pat Bayers (Umpire, Big 10 Conference). They will fly out on June 25th in order to acclimatise and prepare for the tournament.