Referee Stephanie Frappart took to the field to officiate a UEFA Champions League game yesterday evening, the first time in history that a woman has done so.
The game saw Ukrainian giants Dynamo Kyiv take on Italian giants Juventus in an almost dead rubber clash, with both sides’ fates for progression to knockout football confirmed before the match, Juventus going through and Kyiv crashing out of the competition.
Some things never change, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring his 750th career goal in his side’s 3-0 victory, not a bad start to Frappart’s elite European debut.
The announcement that she would take charge of the match generated an overall positive reception on social media, with many pleased to see a woman finally officiate a match at the heights of European football.
Despite there being no crowd as football continues to work on getting fans back into their stadiums, Frappart can be happy with her Champions League officiating debut, as she dished out three yellow cards and handled VAR well when it was used to look at Juventus’ third goal, which was rightly ruled out.
Frappart is no stranger to men’s football. In 2011 she began taking charge of French third division games and in 2014, made the step up to the country’s second division.
Her Ligue 1 officiating debut came in April 2019 and four months later, she was handed refereeing duty for the UEFA Super Cup clash between Liverpool and Chelsea.
Perhaps this is the beginning of a significant change in football. We’ve seen female linesmen introduced into men’s football in the past few years and now the big initial step has finally been made to put a female at the heart of the action where the world’s eyes are on you.
Hopefully this will now inspire more females to make the step up to the big time, as football heads continue to make huge steps in making the sport more inclusive for everyone.
