FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is ready to create a new history in men’s football as it will be the first time that women’s match officials will be involved in a men’s football World Cup match. A total of six women’s match officials, three referees and three assistant referees, have been appointed for officiating in the mega event.
FIFA Referees Committee has named 129 match officials in total – 36 referees, 69 assistant referees and 24 video match officials for the World Cup. Among them, three referees and three assistant referees are women, who are on the verge of creating history
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022: 6 women referees will be creating history at the tournament
The FIFA World Cup 2022 will be the 22nd edition of the men’s football World Cup. Since the first edition of this tournament back in 1930, all the men’s football World Cup matches have been conducted only by men’s officials. But the 2022 edition will be the first experience for women’s referees and women’s assistant referees to conduct a men’s football World Cup match.
Women referees
- Stephanie Frappart (France)
- Salima Mukansanga (Rwanda)
- Yoshimi Yamashita (Japan)
Women assistant referees
- Neuza Back (Brazil)
- Karen Díaz Medina (Mexico)
- Kathryn Nesbitt (USA)
FIFA Referees Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina expressed his happiness with this new development. He feels that this process should be normalised in future tournaments where quality will be counted instead of gender. All six women referees had to pass the same fitness tests as men referees and were compared to the same performance standards as their men colleagues.
Collina stated on the official website, “In this way, we clearly emphasise that it is quality that counts for us and not gender. I would hope that in the future, the selection of elite women’s match officials for important men’s competitions will be perceived as something normal and no longer as sensational. They deserve to be at the FIFA World Cup because they constantly perform at a really high level, and that’s the important factor for us.”
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