World Cup Qatar 2022: Women referees make history

An all-female refereeing team, for the first time in history, will officiate matches at the Men’s World Cup.

The French Stephanie Frappart along with the Brazilian Neuza Back and the Mexican Karen Díaz Medina will lead the match in which the teams of Costa Rica and Germany will meet this Thursday, at the Al Bayt stadium.

Frappart has already broken history in Qatar by becoming the first female referee of the tournament, when she was named the fourth referee of the match between Mexico and Poland last Tuesday.

“We know the pressure,” the Frenchwoman told the BBC before the start of the World Cup.

  Everything for the first time

The 38-year-old Frenchwoman has already made history in European football. In 2019, she became the first woman to referee a Super Cup match and in 2020 she did the same in the Champions League.

 The young woman Stephanie Frappart has already participated in the short list of managers for the match between Portugal and Ghana and which she measured Mexico against Poland.

For her part, Díaz Medina reached the milestone of being the first woman to handle the second leg of the Mexican league final in 2019. This, just one year after she was certified as an assistant referee by the Associated Football Federation (FIFA).

However, his career, which spanned more than 12 years, began by accident.

“One day while I was working in the cafeteria at the Sports Center, the designated referee didn’t show up for the game, the league manager asked me if I wanted to referee the game and I said yes, I liked it, I was paid to do something that I really enjoyed. From then on they gave me more games every week and with the money I earned I was able to pay for the University,” Díaz Medina said in an interview with the North Central American Federation. and the Caribbean Football Association (Concacaf).

The Brazilian citizen is no stranger to the world of refereeing and in 2005 she began her long career in the field after finishing her studies.

 Since 2008, Back has been playing the whistle in different competitions in her country and in 2014 she received recognition from FIFA, which allowed her to be one of the first participants listed for the men’s match of the Copa Libertadores de América in 2021.

The referees are talking

When asked if she had ever received criticism and comments from players, managers or fans for being a woman, Frappart told the BBC:

“Since I started I was getting the support of the team, clubs and players, I was welcomed in the field, so I feel like I am one more referee in the field like before”.

Back, at the same time, admitted that her work was not easy and that she had to go through difficult times to win. However, she claimed to have found a recipe to deal with them.

“When I go through a difficult situation, where discrimination is shown in a hidden way, and bad jokes, I just think that what someone thinks or says about me doesn’t tell about me,” she said in a recent interview with the EFE agency.

The referee, who was born 38 years ago in the municipality of Saudades, in the state of Santa Catarina, close to the border with Argentina, ensured that in professional football discrimination against women is decreasing and decreasing regularly, but there are still many challenges to face in youth soccer.

“Discrimination exists more in the football of the unskilled,” he said, adding: “What we (female referees) have to do is to do a good job, make the right decisions on the field and everything will go together.”

For her part, Díaz Medina said she hopes to be a role model for other girls, by “showing them that dreams come true if you work hard and love what you do.”

Three other women are among the 36 referees selected by FIFA to oversee matches in Qatar.