Women’s Football
Tatiana Guzmán was a soccer player and later went to arbitration. In addition, she was the first woman to lead a men’s First Division match in her country.
Women’s refereeing has come a long way in recent years and proof of this is that more and more female referees are included to direct tournaments of great importance for men’s and women’s soccer. A little over four months from the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, a Nicaraguan referee is the first from her country to participate in a planetary event.
This is Tatiana Guzmán, a woman who has always been linked to sports and who has gone through various disciplines such as baseball, judo, volleyball and soccer. When she was a soccer player, she never thought of becoming a referee, however, that changed in 2010 when she saw an international referee lead in Nicaragua.
“I started researching the World Cup on the internet and I said to myself that I wanted to travel around the world and be a referee. I could never have made it to a top team in soccer. So… I love soccer. I fell in love with refereeing because of first time when I saw that referee from another country in a match. That was the reason,” Guzmán said from Montevideo, where he attended the third FIFA refereeing seminar in preparation for Australia and New Zealand 2023.
Tatiana started as an assistant referee before becoming a central judge and in 2014 she obtained her FIFA certification at the age of 25. Since then, she has broken down the barriers, becoming a benchmark in her country and being the first woman to direct a men’s First Division match.
In addition, she is the first Nicaraguan to be designated for the women’s final of a Concacaf Pre-Olympic Championship and now, she became the first representative of her country’s refereeing in the 2023 Women’s World Cup to be part of the video refereeing team (VAR). .
For Guzmán, being the first referee from her country in the biggest event in women’s soccer “is just an incredible feeling. I worked hard for this. It’s a great improvement for Nicaragua because we don’t even have a high level of soccer. I think even in refereeing, this will be exciting for other girls, and also soccer teams, so they know they can be a part of this,” she said.
