Meet The 3 Female Referees To Officiate In FIFA 2022 World Cup

Stephanie Frappart, Yoshimi Yamashita and  Salima Mukansanga will make history as the first female referees to officiate in the men’s FIFA World Cup. These women were included on the list of 36 referees who will take the field at the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

According to Fifa’s head of refereeing, Pierluigi Collina, the selection of officials was made without consideration of gender. “This concludes a long process that began several years ago with the deployment of female referees at Fifa men’s junior and senior tournaments,” Collina said.

“In this way, we clearly emphasise that it is quality that counts for us and not genders. 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.”

So who are these women and why are they only  the only female referees officiating in the 2022 FIFA World Cup

Stephanie Frappart.

Stéphanie Frappart is a  38-year-old French football referee. She has been on the FIFA International Referees List since 2009 and has refereed several high-profile matches. She became the first woman to referee a major men’s European match and a French Ligue 1 match, both in 2019, and the first woman to officiate a UEFA Champions League match in 2020.  In 2021 Frappart became the first woman to take charge of a men’s World Cup Qualifying match.

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Yoshimi Yamashita

Yoshimi Yamashita is a 36-year-old international football referee from Japan. She was an official at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France and also refereed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in the match between the United States and Sweden. She was the first female referee ever to take charge of a match in Asia’s AFC Champions League earlier this year.

Salima Mukansanga

Salima Mukansanga s an international football referee from Rwanda. She was an official at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France. For Mukansanga, the 2022 World Cup will be her second major men’s international tournament in less than 12 months. In 2022, She became the first woman to referee at the African Cup of Nations leading an all-woman officiating team. She has officiated at the Olympics, FIFA Women’s World Cup, Africa Women Cup of Nations and CAF Women’s Champions League.

Also among the 69 assistant referees who have been called are three other women, Brazil’s Neuza Back, Mexico’s Karen Diaz Medina and the USA’s Kathryn Nesbitt.