In a first for international football, seven women match officials have been picked as support referees for the Fifa U-17 World Cup in India, to be held from October 6 to 28.
“For the first-ever time, Fifa has selected female referees for a men’s tournament,” said a statement by the tournament’s organising committee. “The results and improvements seen in the joint preparations have shown that the time has come for the elite female referees to officiate in men’s competitions together with their male colleagues.”
Further citing the reason for this inclusion, Massimo Busacca, Fifa’s head of refereeing, added, “We think it’s time for the elite female referees to be involved in a Fifa men’s competition. They worked together with male match officials last year and now we want to see them working together in a competition.”
The officials, appointed by the Fifa Referees Committee, represent all six confederations. These are the women referees picked for the Under-17 World Cup: Ok Ri Hyang (Korea), Gladys Lengwe (Zambia), Carol Anne Chenard (Canada), Claudia Umpierrez (Uruguay), Anna-Marie Keighley (New Zealand), Kateryna Monzul (Ukraine) and Esther Staubli (Switzerland).
The referees have completed a host of activities together in seminars, including theoretical sessions in the classroom and practical sessions on the field, Fifa said. In order to gain consistency and uniformity, the match officials have also practiced various game situations.
Matches of the 2017 Fifa Under-17 World Cup will be held in Goa, Guwahati, Kochi, Kolkata, Navi Mumbai and New Delhi. The final will be played at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan Stadium in Kolkata on October 28.