Stéphanie Frappart became the first woman to officiate a World Cup match

Stéphanie Frappart became today the first female referee to direct a men’s World Cup match in Germany’s 4-2 victory over Costa Rica, for the last date of Qatar’s Group E 2022.La referee, a native of France, headed the all-female shortlist at Al Bayt Stadium with Brazil’s Neuza Back and Mexico’s Karen Díaz Medina as assistants. and completed their performance in a historic match, both for their presence and for the elimination of Germany, which for the second consecutive time remains out in the group stage after being champion in 2014. In 2018 the German team fell to South Korea, 2-0, in the third game. Now he repeated the defeat against another Asian team, Japan, 2-1 in the first date, then tied with Spain by 1 to 1 and defeated Costa Rica by 4 goals against 2, but the result was not enough and finally stayed in 16th of the Qatar 2022 World Cup.Frappart controlled the match with authority and had an important intervention in the match with the assistance of the VAR to validate a goal from Germany which had been annulled by an alleged advanced position pointed out by the Brazilian Back. During that moment, Frappart had a quick resolution because despite an error in his intercom he resolved the decision with the fourth referee, the Honduran Said Martínez. After annulling the goal, the referee was assisted and solved the technical problem. On the disciplinary level, the Frenchwoman, 38, collected only 11 fouls and drew a yellow card to Costa Rican defender Oscar Duarte for a strong blow. The attendees had more interventions with a total of seven offsides. After being the fourth referee of the Mexico-Poland match, for group C, and Portugal-Ghana, Frappart went a step further and for the first time in 92 years the name of a woman was written in the history of the men’s World Cup. The Frenchwoman has extensive experience in both women’s and men’s refereeing: with six matches refereed in the Women’s World Cup, she consolidated herself as one of the best and earned a place in the men’s. Her career began in the second division of French football but after five years she ascended to Ligue 1 until she earned the possibility of being the first woman to control matches of men’s European tournaments. So Frappart was in the 2019 European Super Cup final between Liverpool and Chelsea and earned praise from German coach Jürgen Klopp. After that performance chained other milestones in matches of European teams in the framework of the League of Nations, Champions League, FIFA Qualifiers and until the final of the French Cup.Frappart told FIFA that he feels “a lot of pride and a lot of honor” for the historical event that has her as a protagonist. One of his assistants is Brazilian Neuza Back, also 38 years old and sister of a referee. Since 2009 he participates in the Brazilian championship (in 2020 he exceeded one hundred matches) and after five years he earned the FIFA international label. Prior to the Qatar 2022 World Cup, Back was in the Club World Cup, in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and her debut in the men’s Copa Libertadores occurred at the Defensa y Justicia stadium in a match against Independiente del Valle in 2021.On the other hand, the Mexican Karen Díaz Medina is also 38 years old and has a long career in soccer in her country; He debuted as a professional in 2009 and in 2016 he joined the refereeing team of the Liga MX of the men’s First Division and achieved the FIFA international label in 2018. Before being called up for the World Cup, she gained experience in the Concacaf World Cup qualifiers.

Original source in Spanish