World soccer governing body, FIFA, has selected 36 referees, 69 assistant referees, and 24 video match officials (VMOs) for the upcoming FIFA World Cup schedule for Qatar in November. The invited officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide and are also made up of at least six women’s match officials who have been appointed for the first time in World Cup history.

According to FIFA, these referees were “chosen in close cooperation with the six confederations, based on their quality and the performances delivered at FIFA tournaments as well as at other international and domestic competitions in recent years.”

“As always, the criteria we have used is ‘quality first’ and the selected match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide,” said the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina. “The 2018 World Cup was very successful, partly because of the high standard of refereeing, and we will do our best to be even better in a few months in Qatar.”

Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina, was elated that for the first time in the history of the tournament, the FIFA Referees Committee appointed three women's referees and three women's assistant referees.

“We are very happy that with Stéphanie Frappart from France, Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda and Yoshimi Yamashita from Japan, as well as assistant referees Neuza Back from Brazil, Karen Díaz Medina from Mexico, and Kathryn Nesbitt from the USA, 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. In this way, we clearly emphasize 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”, Collina concluded.