Publications
Partners
The SA Football Association (Safa) is on a mission to empower female match officials.
This was evident last week during a match officials workshop at the High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria, where 11 female referees and 15 female match commissioners were inducted into the national refereeing panel.
The excited chairperson of Safa’s technical committee, Anastasia Tsichlas, believes they are on the right track to empower women.
She said the workshop was a resounding success, with almost all the participants coming out with flying colours – except for one assistant referee.
Tsichlas said 88 officials – half of whom were commissioners – attended the week-long workshop, which was conducted by Fifa instructors An Yan Lim Lim Kee Chong and Carlos Henriques.
“These are exciting times for us as we want women to lead from the front. This is not a window-dressing exercise as we want them to go out and prove themselves. It is about time that women in this country are taken seriously and we have given them the platform,” said Tsichlas.
She said the female officials would be integrated into the PSL panel and the ABC Motsepe League.
“For the first time, we have a lot of female officials, but we want to develop more. We are going to invite Fifa and CAF to send their instructors to conduct more workshops all over the country.”
Tsichlas said their aim was to see more female referees officiating in PSL matches.
Akhona Makalima was the only female referee on the PSL panel last season, and Tsichlas said they wanted more representatives.
“It is a good start for us and hopefully they will be given the chance and the respect they deserve. We will continue to support them.”
