Nigeria missing as 12 African referees make 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup list

By Saheed Afolabi

FIFA have overlooked Nigeria as the world football body has included four Africans in the list of referees to officiate at the upcoming 2023  FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia on Monday.

33 referees, 55 assistant referees and 19 video match officials to officiate in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, including Rwanda’s Salima Mukansanga and Akhona Makalima of South Africa are among 12 African match officials.

While Nigeria had no referee among those selected for biggest women’s football tournament, Mukansanga, who made history as the first female referee from Africa to officiate at the men’s World Cup in Qatar, was selected among the centre referees alongside Makalima, Vincentia Amedome (Togo) and Bouchra Karboubi (Morocco).

Cameroon’s Carine Atezambong, Diana Chikotesha (Zambia), Moroccan duo Soukaina Hamdi and Fatiha Jermoumi, Mali’s Fanta Kone, Mary Njoroge of Kenya and Queency Victoire from Mauritania are the assistant referees while Adil Zourak will serve as the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

Chairman of FIFA referees committee, Pierluigi Collina described the referees list as based on merit and qualifications.

“As always, the criteria we have used is ‘quality first’ and the selected on-field match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide,” Collina told FIFA.com.

“We all remember the very successful FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 in France. The high standard of refereeing contributed significantly to that success. The aim for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 is to repeat that success and to convince again with excellent referees’ performances.

“Road to Australia & New Zealand project started back in 2020, with more than 170 candidate match officials going through intensive preparation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this preparation was anything, but easy as in-presence activities were suspended for a long period.

“Even though the pandemic affected our activities, we had enough time to provide the candidates with good preparation. As we did for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, we are announcing these selections well in advance to be able to work in a purposeful and focused manner with all those who have been appointed for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, monitoring them over the coming months. From the selected referees, we expect a rigorous and focused preparation for the Women’s World Cup, a competition that FIFA and its president hold in the highest of regards.”

Head of FIFA women’s referee, Kari Seitz said new programs were developed to accelerate referees development.

“With critical time lost due to the pandemic in preparation for the Women’s World Cup, we developed some new programmes to accelerate our referee development, such as our very effective Tracking & Support programme, where each referee candidate was assigned a FIFA coach who provided feedback on their matches each month. This programme will continue to be critical in the final phase of preparation for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.”