Potsdam (Brandenburg) – “Football is for boys.” Loreley K. (11) has heard this saying many times. But it didn’t stop her from being the only girl to fight for a place in the Blau-Weiß Rädel’s E-youth squad in the municipality of Kloster Lehnin (Brandenburg).
Now Loreley wants to assert herself on the pitch again: as a referee!
Girls too young for the course
“In our games as a youth team, we often had no referees or not very good referees,” she remembers. Loreley wanted to do better. She became Germany’s youngest football referee.
The “kick-off” wasn’t that easy: the candidate course requires children to be at least twelve years old. But her father solved the problem: “Because I am a year too young, the condition was that my dad take part in the certificate.” Since he is also the coach of the E-youth team in Rädel (462 inhabitants, Brandenburg), he was quickly persuaded.
Loreley passed the final exam, consisting of a theory test and an endurance test, with 82 percent.
Baptism of fire with a whistle at a football game
Things got serious at the beginning of March: there was a lot of excitement at the local indoor tournament because the young referee has high expectations of a referee herself. “She needs self-confidence, control, assertiveness, courage and a good sense of proportion.”
Referee Steffi Schick from FSV Eintracht Glindow stood by Loreley as a godmother, gave tips and demonstrated: There are other female referees too. The eleven-year-old: “Steffi is my role model.”
After the test is before the game: Loreley whistled her first short game in March – initial mistakes due to nervousness were quickly forgotten
Photo: rbb/Dirk Heuer
Referee as a child? No thing!
Now Loreley was allowed to lead her first large field game and also prevailed among the B juniors, who were two heads taller. Referee sponsor Schick: “We were brave, Großfeld is not something to be taken for granted at that age and with so little experience. I’m really proud!”
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And that can also be Loreley: “I have earned a lot of respect, and on the sports field I am now only addressed as a woman referee.” Her goal: “To referee in the 1st Bundesliga at some point.”
The girl even made it onto television! The TV station “KiKA” accompanied the young referee on the way to the first game for the program “Look into my world!”
2024-05-17 19:41:29
#Football #girl #Germanys #youngest #referee #Regional
