Salima Mukansanga, a female referee from Rwanda, and two other women have been chosen to work at this year’s FIFA men’s World Cup in Qatar. This is the first time in the tournament’s history that something like this will happen.
Stephanie Frappart of France and Yoshimi Yamashita of Japan are the other two women referees. Three other women will help the three main referees.
Mukansanga also made history at the Africa Cup of Nations for men in 2022 when she became the first woman to referee a game. Even though she wanted to be a professional basketball player when she was younger, the 33-year-old decided to become a referee 15 years ago. She has been a referee in Rwanda since 2018, and being a referee at the AFCON was one of her best times.
Before AFCON, she was in charge of games at the Women’s World Cup, the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, and the CAF Women’s Champions League. She was also a referee for the women’s football game at the Olympics in Japan in 2020.
Taylor, on the other hand, was in charge of the match between Denmark and Finland at the Euro 2020 tournament. She was praised for how quickly she made sure that Christian Eriksen of Denmark got medical help after he had a heart attack and collapsed on the field.
The 36 referees who will work at this year’s FIFA men’s World Cup in Qatar have been chosen. They’ll have 69 assistant referees and 24 video match officials to help them out.
The chairman of Fifa’s referee’s committee, Pierluigi Collina, said, “As always, the criteria we used was ‘quality,’ and the match officials we chose are the best in the world.”
“This is the end of a long process that started a few years ago when female referees were put in charge of men’s junior and senior Fifa tournaments.
“In this way, we make it clear that what matters to us is not gender but quality.
“I hope that in the future, the fact that top women’s match officials are chosen for important men’s tournaments will be seen as normal and not as a big deal.”
The 2022 FIFA World Cup will start on November 21, 2022, in Qatar.
