São Paulo – The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) announced last week the list of the selected match officials for the World Cup Qatar to start in November. Among the selected 36 referees and 69 assistant referees, for the first time in the history of the tournament three women referees and three women assistant referees were appointed. They include Brazil’s assistant referee Neusa Back (pictured). Selected match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide.
“We are very happy that with Stephanie Frappart from France, Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda and Yoshimi Yamashita from Japan, as well as assistant referees Neuza Back from Brazil, Karen Díaz Medina from Mexico and Kathryn Nesbitt from the United States, we have been able to call up female match officials for the first time in the history of a FIFA World Cup. This concludes a long process that began several years ago with the deployment of female referees at FIFA men’s junior and senior tournaments. In this way, we clearly emphasize that it is quality that counts for us and not gender,” FIFA Referees Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina stated.
Collina said he hopes 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 and stressed the high level of the selected female professionals. “The 2018 World Cup was very successful, partly because of the high standard of refereeing, and we will do our best to be even better in a few months in Qatar,” Collina said. The officials were chosen in cooperation with the six confederations, based on their quality and the performances delivered at FIFA tournaments as well as at other international and domestic competitions in recent years. FIFA’s slate of 24 video match officials (VMO) did not include any women.
Selection
The “Road to Qatar 2022” project to select the officials started back in 2019, with more than 50 trios considered possible candidates and going through intensive preparation. Massimo Busacca, FIFA’s Director of Refereeing, was quoted as saying in a statement that thanks to an innovative tracking and support program, all the match officials can be supervised by FIFA referees’ instructors even more closely and intensively than in previous years.
“In addition to that, there will be tailor-made individual programs, in particular concerning health and fitness. Each match official will be carefully monitored in the next months with a final assessment on technical, physical and medical aspects to be made shortly before the World Cup, in order to have them in the best conditions when the ball starts rolling in Qatar,” he was quoted as saying.
The selected match officials will participate in early Summer in several seminars to take place in Asunción, Paraguay, Madrid, Spain and Doha, Qatar, reviewing and analyzing video clips of real match situations, and taking part in practical training sessions with players, which will be filmed to enable participants to receive instant feedback from the instructors.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
