The officiating crew was led by Center Referee Tori Penso, while Karen Diaz of Mexico and Stephanie-Dale Yee Sing of Jamaica served as Assistant Referees. Romani started her career as an assistant referee in the Italian Serie B in 2018 and has since gone on to referee in the Italian Serie A and Coppa Italia. The Dane who helped rebuild Zambia's football team Women have been actively participating, albeit mostly from the sidelines, in mens football for almost a century. Ten years ago, a sexism row erupted over Sian Massey-Ellis officiating as an assistant referee in the Premier League, the dinosaur view that women cannot grasp the offside rule seeping into punditry. I've got faith in the system, and I've been rewarded.". We are huge fans. The 2022 World Cup will include female referees for the first time at a major men's international tournament, with Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor also selected to officiate. VideoCounty Antrim pupils record special coronation hymn. Female Premier League referee only a matter of time - Massey-Ellis Yes, the Premier League does have female referees. It helped the game become stable after years of stagnancy. ", Maddie, Poppy, Summer & Zoie (Stourbridge Women fans). Thus, the Copa Libertadores game I watched last week was the first time in history that there were six female referees working a top-level international mens soccer game. Because I like to use raw data to make comparisons, I downloaded the 2021 FIFA List of International Match Officials and did some number crunching. English referee Sian Massey-Ellis believes it is only a matter of time before there is a female referee in the Premier League. Welch says it was only a couple of years ago that she was confident enough in her progress up the tiers of the FAs referee pathway to take a break from her job as an NHS administrator and concentrate full-time on the game. She has praised the support and influence of Sian Massey-Ellis, an assistant referee in the Premier League. The sky is the limit. [28], She is married to Robert Ellis, who is also a football referee. Welch acknowledges her role as a "trailblazer" in the game and believes there will be a female referee in the Premier League. Sian Massey-Ellis, currently the highest ranked female official in the UK, started running the line in the Football League in 2009 and has been an assistant referee for Premier League games since 2010. Welch believes it is only the beginning: "If it's not me, I've got no doubt, in the next 10 to 15 years, we will see a female referee in the Premier League, [but first] we'll get Monday out of the way. Meet Rebecca Welch, the English Football League's first female referee "But when you reflect on it [and] think youre the first woman ever to do this, Im extremely proud. She has spent 11 years working her way up the ranks to mark this new professional milestone - and because she is making history, this is also a new step for women to tick off.