Who formed the 1st trio?

The World Cup in Qatar is historic, the first World Cup held in a Middle Eastern country and the first time that a game in the men’s competition had a female referee. After 92 years of the biggest football competition in the world, three women refereed a game.

Frenchwoman Stéphanie Frappart, Mexican Karen Diaz Medina and Brazilian Neusa Back refereed the match between Costa Rica and Germany, which took place on November 1, 2022. Furthermore, Frappart also made history by being the first woman to be the main referee in a men’s World Cup. In total, three referees and three assistants were selected by FIFA to participate in the Qatar Cup.

In fact, this World Cup has been very important for women in football. This is because there was also the first woman narrating the games on the TV Globo broadcast.

Below we will learn a little more about the women who were part of the first female referee in the men’s cup.

Who formed the first female referee in the men’s World Cup?

Let’s get to know better who are the women who formed the first female referee in the men’s World Cup:

Stéphanie Frappart

The 38-year-old Frenchwoman has a long history with football. Stéphanie became interested in the sport thanks to her father, who played for the amateur team in her city, in the interior of France. Therefore, the girl accompanied her father to the games and began to enjoy it, so much so that he became a Val d’Oise athlete. However, she gave up her life as an athlete to pursue a career as a referee.

“I fell in love with refereeing in a short time, right after my first whistles”said the referee in an interview with the French Football Federation.

And the French woman’s history is full of pioneering acts, as she is the first in many things. Before being the main referee in the game between Germany and Costa Rica, Stéphanie Frappart became the first woman to participate in a men’s World Cup match. In this case, she first served as fourth referee for Mexico and Poland.

Frappart has been a member of FIFA since 2011, and has been the first woman in four other competitions: French Championship, Champions League, Qatar qualifiers and the UEFA Super Cup final. Therefore, she is already used to opening doors for other women in arbitration.

NeuzaBack

Brazilian Neuza Inês Back is another of the women who formed the first female referee in the men’s World Cup. Neuza has a brother who is a referee and graduated in physical education and made his debut in the Catarinense Championship. After a lot of work, she was finally called to join FIFA’s assistant team, back in 2014.

Then, two years later Neuza participated in two major competitions, the first was the 2016 Olympic Games and in 2020 the Club World Cup. Furthermore, the Brazilian is also a pioneer here, as she was also in the first 100% female team in the Club World Cup and Libertadores.

Karen Diaz Medina

Finally, completing the 100% female refereeing trio at the World Cup, Mexican Karen Diaz Medina. In Karen’s case, she didn’t start out primarily with football, as she has a degree in agro-industrial engineering. She worked in a cafe at a sports center, and one day she replaced a referee who couldn’t arrive to referee the match.

So, she had a career in refereeing, and debuted as a professional in 2009. A few years later, more precisely in 2016, Karen participated in the Mexican League and has a great resume in the sport, where she has accumulated several games and disputes in the Concacaf base pre-World Cups.

Other female referee participants

In total, six women were selected by FIFA for the 2022 World Cup. In addition to Stéphanie, Neuza and Karen, there was also Yoshimi Yamashita, from Japan, Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda and Kathryn Nesbitt from the United States.

Although these women represent less than 5% of the entire team, it still represents a historic milestone for the male-dominated competition. And more than that, in Qatar, which is an extremely conservative country.

What was the first 100% female referee like?

The game that had the first 100% female refereeing was the clash between Germany and Costa Rica. The game ended with Germany winning, with 4 goals against 2 for Costa Rica. In general, the game was quite exciting and the refereeing did not disappoint in any aspect.

According to sports experts, the work of the women’s team was very discreet, but efficient, as it should be in a competition of this level.

In total, 12 fouls were called, 6 in the first half and 6 in the second, without any refereeing errors. As for the assistants, they were also correct in the offsides they marked, which totaled 7 in the entire match, which had an extra 10 minutes. Anyway, the debut of the trio of women was very positive, delivering a great refereeing job for a game of this importance.

How important is this for the world?

As we have seen so far, this fact is very important and relevant. And it shows that finally, men’s football is giving women opportunities to showcase their work. In fact, this path has been followed for many years.

The first edition of the World Cup took place in 1030, and since then, FIFA had never called on women for any refereeing role in games, not even in VAR. Something that makes clear the lack of opportunities in training and late evolution in this regard.

Another detail is that between 1941 and 1979, women were banned from playing football in Brazil, something that considerably affected their development in the sport. And the first female referee in the world only debuted in the 1970s, still at that stage and was even a Brazilian, Léa Campos.

There aren’t many details or records about the history of women in football, but we know that Léa made history by possibly being the first woman to referee a men’s football game.

So, as FIFA wrote in the post announcing the female referee trio for this World Cup, this is “History in the making!”.

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Sources: ESPN Estadão CNN Metrópoles Brasil Escola GE G1