Rwandan international female referee Salma Mukansanga will officiate at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 202, according to FIFA announcement.
Mukansanga who recently made history in Qatar World Cup 2022, is among a total of 33 referees, 55 assistant referees and 19 video match officials (VMOs) who form FIFA Team One.
The officials have been chosen in close cooperation with the six confederations, based on the officials’ quality and the performances delivered at FIFA tournaments as well as at other international and domestic competitions in recent years.
For the first time in the history of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, six female VMOs have also been selected.
“As always, the criteria we have used is ‘quality first’ and the selected on-field match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide,” said the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina.
“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.”
In addition, the Italian explained that the “Road to Australia & New Zealand” project started back in 2020, with more than 170 candidate match officials going through intensive preparation.
Kari Seitz, FIFA’s Head of Women Refereeing, stressed that the match officials will continue to receive all necessary support from FIFA, as their preparation is paramount.
“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.”
