In a rugged terrain for women such as men’s soccer, it is still, inevitably, news when a professional directs a top elite match; it is a feeling of strangeness, a ‘rara avis’ for a large public culturally accustomed to seeing a man blowing the whistle. However, slowly but steadily, this drift tends to dissolve into normality, because more and more women are finding their place in the world in this old sport. The boom begins to be unstoppable.
One of the main reasons why in a few years there will be no rivers of ink when a woman whistles in the best competitions on the world football scene is Stephanie Frappart (Le Plessis-Bouchard, France, 1983), referee in FIFA and UEFA competitions who will take charge of Real Madrid – Celtic Glasgow in the Champions League this Wednesday after a solid career in France. This case is particularly special since the current European champion, a capital entity in football legend, has never been refereed by a woman.
Because, in contrast to the German and Italian football elite, in the First Division the main referee was never of the opposite sex to the players. Thus, an institution women’s football as Bibiana Steinhaus He has 23 Bundesliga games and a German Super Cup final to his credit; while the recent second of October, Maria Sole Ferrieri it premiered in Serie A in a Sassuolo – Salernitana.
On the national scene, it is Guadalupe Porras Ayuso who is closest to refereeing a First Division match. The Extremaduran was the first woman to be an assistant in LaLiga, she was a line judge in the Copa del Rey final in the 2021 Basque derby and, this year, she made her debut in the Champions League as a linesman at Napoli-Liverpool. Her career is on the upswing.
He will be at the World Cup in Qatar
Chosen as the best referee in the world in 2019 and 2020 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), Frappart will referee her second match in Europe’s top competition at the Santiago Bernabéu after Juventus – Dynamo kyiv in 2020, when she became the first woman to officiate at a Champions League match. However, this is just one more of her early successes. Because she, at only 38 years old, has already directed a European Super Cup (Liverpool – Chelsea, 2019), the final of the last Women’s World Cup (United States – Netherlands), six games of Europa League and 54 games in the French first division, including Monaco – Angers (2-0) on the last day of the league where he had an outstanding performance by pointing out a penalty from Amadou on the Monegasque team striker Ben Yedder.
However, the biggest milestone for the French collegiate will come in the middle of this month of November, when, once again, it will once again be a pioneer in a world led by men. The Qatar World Cup awaits you and the merit is yours alone.
