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When the bills stopped working, Omar Bermúdez saw refereeing as an escape from his problems: today he is nowhere near directing the final of the 2023 Basketball World Cup.
The Mexican referee, born in Tijuana, will be the national representative in the Basketball World Cup Final, which will be played on the morning of this Sunday, September 10 between Germany and Serbia.
During his time as a student, Omar was excited to show himself on the courts of Tijuana and capture the attention of a viewer in the area to advance in his dream of being a basketball player, without the idea that his path would be linked to the sport, but since another angle.
And when money began to be a problem for Omar and his academic life, basketball reached out to him, but in a very particular way.
“My goal as a young person was always to play sports as professionally as possible. I did it in the local student leagues, then Tijuana opened a franchise for the Cup, then with the passage of time my profile changed.
“The reality is that, for me, refereeing ends up being a coincidence, something that I was not intentionally looking for. Over there, on a weekend in a local league that is played in Tijuana, they tell me: ‘you were already here, so you can referee and work,’” Omar said on the Café y Basketball podcast.
What began as a joking and even informal invitation ended with Omar helping himself financially for school, thanks to the small payments they gave him in his local league.
“I coincide on the court with a good friend, Alejandra Ángel, who was practicing refereeing. The reality is that all of us who started, and myself included, did so because it was financial support for our time as students.
‘I approach Alejandra and I jokingly tell her: ‘I want to be a referee’ and another teammate answers me: ‘Well, come’, and I arrived with them the following week, without a whistle, without feathers, nothing, I was not prepared. And that’s how I learned about refereeing. They were Saturday days of 5, 8 or 10 games,” Omar explained.
MEXICAN PRIDE! ????????
The Tijuana referee, Omar Bermúdez, will be in charge of directing the actions in the Basketball World Cup Final.
The Mexican dreamed of being a basketball player, but the need to earn money led him to be a referee and tomorrow he will be in a Final of… pic.twitter.com/8ing58I7GQ
— FOX Sports MX (@FOXSportsMX) September 9, 2023
FROM BATTLEING TO TAKE NOTES, TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL REFEREE!
Already in his first games as a referee, Omar did not struggle to impart discipline or to enforce the rules of the game, but it was another challenge that gave him green gray hair.
“I was bad at scoring, I was never good. I’m too hyperactive to sit, imagine 8 games. That’s how I got into refereeing, then I continued with children’s tournaments, open leagues, in refereeing I’m letting myself go, I go wherever they call me.
“That’s how I got to refereeing, until I met people who were already in the professional field, but it is through playing that they pull me into professional leagues,” Omar said.
It was another friend, who already knew other heights of Mexican basketball, who finally convinced Omar to attend training and courses, where he finally managed to become a professional referee in one of them.
“My process was very peculiar, I had aspirations to continue playing, but they invited me to a camp, and that is where they really soaked me in refereeing information, a friend convinced me to go to training (at 22 years old) and It is then that in that clinic, which was for selection and to revalidate licenses for professional referees and for applicants, that from one day to the next I became a professional referee,” he said.
That need, that of the student who liked basketball, turned Omar into a FIBA referee, with experience in the National Professional Basketball League (in Mexico), the G League, in the NBA Summer League, Basketball World Cup China 2019 and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Omar will not face a Saturday day of 10 games in his beloved Tijuana, while he battles to score… This Sunday, the Mexican will referee the most important game of his ‘eventful’ career, that of the 2023 Basketball World Cup Final.
2023-09-09 20:52:15
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