Success Stories
Farias Soccer Academy
Jose Farias Martinez
Hello my name is Jose Farias Martinez and I am a former FIFA referee and today I coach at Farias Soccer Academy.
I grew up in a small town in Chile and moved to Montreal when I was 16. During this time Montreal was taking in a lot of immigrants and my father and uncle would referee after work to make extra money for the family.
Soccer in the community started to grow with the amount of immigrants coming to Montreal at the time. What started as a part-time job quickly turned into a full-time job for both my uncle and father. I decided to join them to make extra money with my dad. We went from refereeing a few games a week to doing 2 games a day. There was always a shortage of referees in the area and the demand for referees was high.
I started on the line until one day my dad gave me his whistle and said go ahead try it. The Whistle had the power to control the game. It was a challenge and a game at the same time.
To me every game was the world cup match because Montreal was so ethnic. The Jamaican’s would play the Italians, the French would play the English and so on. It was very competitive because players would want to represent themselves and their country. It was so fun. Every year after that I upgraded my level and kept adding courses and kept getting better levels.
One day I was invited to referee my first Canada Games game. John Mitchen was running the refs during the CANADA GAMES tournament and witnessed the game I was refereeing. He then asked me to ref the final game. I wasn’t ranked nationally but I was asked and said yes! This started my journey to becoming a professional. In 1996 I started as a FIFA Referee and in 2005 retired from the FIFA list
I was 1 in 5 Canadian FIFA refs at the time. It was a small selected group and we were the only ones allowed to ref international games. I think its important to say that when I came to Canada I couldn’t speak english or french. I was only able to communicate through sport. Soccer made huge difference in my life. The area I grew up in Montreal was rough at times. Most immigrants didn’t come to Canada with money so you can easily get pulled into crime and bad activities. Soccer kept me out of trouble by keeping me busy and it also helped me learn French, English and meet players who were passionate about soccer.
Our coach at the time took me under his wing and told me in order to be a good soccer player you have to be a good person first. I was taught that the only way I could develop as a player was to first develop my mind. I couldn’t be a bad son, a bad student and be a good soccer player. I had be well rounded in order to develop the mental toughness I needed. The only way you can take your game to the next level is to learn emotional control.
This changed my life and thats why its our goal is to create respectful human beings. Its important that young people have challenges, and we can show them through sport how to develop their personality to deal with those challenges. What makes me feel great is seeing athletes grow into their personality. Today Edwardo & Tyler and the rest of the FSA staff play a huge roll in developing the minds of young athletes.
It is our job to create expectations, you have to act, train and have the attitude and balance. Do you want be a great soccer player? Good! Then you can’t be a crappy brother or sister or friend or son or daughter, you have to be well rounded.
You have to have the professional attitude that goes along with your soccer. We’re not here just for super stars, we’re here for everyone.
