Rwanda’s Salima Mukansanga is among the three Women Referees selected for the first time ever to officiate at the FIFA World Cup.
She is joined by Stéphanie Frappart (France) and Yoshimi Yamashita (Japan) for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In addition, three women have been named as assistant referees – Neuza Back (Brazil), Karen Díaz Medina (Mexico) and Kathryn Nesbitt (USA).
The FIFA World Cup is due November 21 to December 18 in Qatar.
It has been a big year for Mukansanga as the achievement comes on the back of making history as the first woman to referee at the AFCON in Cameroon.
“We have been able to call up female match officials for the first time in the history of a FIFA World Cup. This concludes a long process that began several years ago with the deployment of female referees at FIFA men’s junior and senior tournaments,” chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee Pierluigi Collina said.
“In this way, we clearly emphasise that it is quality that counts for us and not gender.
“I would hope that in the future, the selection of elite women’s match officials for important men’s competitions will be perceived as something normal and no longer as sensational. They deserve to be at the FIFA World Cup™ because they constantly perform at a really high level, and that’s the important factor for us.”
In total, the FIFA Referees Committee selected 36 referees, 69 assistant referees and 24 Video Match Officials from six Confederations.
The Committee said that the selection was based on their quality and the performances delivered at FIFA tournaments as well as at other international and domestic competitions in recent years.
The selected match officials will participate in early summer in several seminars (Asunción, Madrid and Doha), reviewing and analysing video clips of real match situations, and taking part in practical training sessions with players, which will be filmed to enable participants to receive instant feedback from the instructors.
