Not many days passed that I didn’t turn on the TV to watch at least one soccer match. When I live in Ecuador, it usually means I listen to the Liga pro Series A match (that’s the top domestic level on the “My” team, Barcelona, winning the title last season). Fortunately, there is a decent European football coverage too, so I can watch many Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, and other European league matches along with occasional MLS games, World Cup qualifiers, etc. During the past years since I became expat. Of course, there are also many other South American domestic league coverage and international games.
Thus, on May 27, I turned on the TV to watch the Copa Libertadores Conmebol group stage match between Defensa Y Justicia Argentina, and the Independiente Del Valle of Ecuador. For reference, the Copa Libertadores is the highest level of competition in South American club football. When the team captain greets each other and the referee to stir the coin, I pay attention to something ordinary: all referees are women!
It was only in September 2020 that a woman was inaugurated as an assistant referee for the first time in the Copa Libertadores match; This happens twice on the same day in two different matches because the scheduled referee (male) is tested positive for Covid and must be replaced at the last minute. The game I watched last week was the first time a woman was responsible for the Copa Libertadores game. So the scenery of the four female females in the field is not suspicious astounding. In addition, two video match officials are also women, making the whole crew lead 100% of women.
Women’s Football Referee: Trailblazers
Women have participated actively, although most of the interruption, in men’s football for almost a century. Petra Tabarelli, who claimed to be “the world’s leading expert on the evolution of the game law and the history of female referee in male football” has examined the subject and created a comprehensive female referee database that he renewed regularly. According to Tabarelli, Edith Klinger from Austria, which was active from 1935 – 1938, was the first female referee to lead men and women.
In the early 80s, women in professional sports – as players, official officials, coaches and office personnel – almost non-existent. So it was an innovative achievement when, in May 1981, Betty Ellis became the first woman to lead a professional soccer game in the US, she was a woman’s match in the North American Football League (NASL) between Portland and Boomer Calgary at the Civic Stadium (now Providence Park).
The progress of the female referee
Ingrid Jonsson (Sweden) and five other female assistant referees were invited to China for the FIFA Women’s World Cup first. Jonson, who started the referee in 1983, remembered that it was the first competitive international tournament where women were inaugurated. However, at that time, they could not be appointed for the match because there were no women in the FIFA referee list 1991. Jonsson finally worked as a female judge in the final. His colleague Cláudia Vasconcelos Guedes from Brazil, was the first female referee in charge of the FIFA tournament. In the third place playoff match on November 29, 1991, Guedes, and his assistant, Zuo Xiudi Xiauda and Linda Black New Zealand, also a team of all the first women to lead in the FIFA tournament.
A few years later, Canada Sonia Denoncoourt became the first woman appointed as an official FIFA referee who was accredited.
In 1999, a collection of 31 referees that fully consisted of women was responsible for the third edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Furthermore, all officials matched the women’s tournament at the Summer Olympics 2000 (the second time there was a female Olympic football competition) as well as a woman.
Around the same time, women receive their first promise at the top level of men’s games. According to football made history, “The first female referee in the first division of Europe in men’s football was Nicole Piignat from Switzerland (1999) and the first female assistant referee was Gertrude Gebhard from Germany (1995).” The first female assistant referee at the international level is Nelly Viennot (France) who worked the UEFA European Championship qualifier in 1996. And the first female referee for the international match organized by UEFA was Nicole Pedgagata (Switzerland) in 2003.
Note Author: After the publication of this article, I was contacted by Dr. Lale Orta from Turkey, which stated that he was the first female referee in the top European Division (Saper Lig match on May 29, 1999, thus defeating Pewelatan in Switzerland in Switzerland. One day) and the first female assistant reference (in 1990). I like to set a direct record.
Men’s referee soccer in England
Women are less commonly run between men’s football in England in the early 20th century. The FA prohibits women from playing in football lods in 1921; The female referee is not considered better. Thus women do not reach the top levels to lead men’s games until the 90s.
Wendy Tom made history when, in 1991, he worked as the fourth referee in the old third division. He later became the first woman to lead as an assistant referee in the football league (1994) and then the Premier League (1996).
In 2010, Amy Fearn was the first woman who took over the soccer league match when the original referee was injured during the match and she took over for the last 20 minutes playing. Fearn became the first woman to make FA Cup game referee in the main draw in 2013.
Sian Massey-Ellis, currently the highest ranking female official in England, starts running a line in the football league in 2009 and has become an assistant referee for the Premier League match since 2010.
Rebecca Welch, who became the referee in 2010, recently made history as the first woman appointed to take over the EFL match in April 2021.
Per BBC, in June 2020, there were 2,146 referee women at all levels of English football. The Football Association states that “the number of female referees in English football has increased 72% since 2016.”
The top women’s football referee in Europe
There are a number of names that you will often hear when discussing women make women working men’s games in Europe.
Bibiana Steinhaus began the referee in men 2. Bundesliga in 2007 and set up his name as the first female referee in German professional football. He was the first woman to lead the Bundesliga match in 2017. At the international level, Steinhaus was responsible for the UEFA Women’s Champions League final in 2017 and the Women’s World Cup final in 2011 and a gold medal match for the Women’s Olympics in 2012 at Wembley Stadium.
Stesphanie Frappart is the first woman to the referee in France’s Ligue 2 in 2014, and made history again by showing off her first match in Ligue 1, in 2019. Frappart was the first woman to take over the main European final when she led the UEFA Super Cup match between Liverpool and Chelsea In August 2019.
