TRAILBLAZING First woman to referee England’s DAY FOR GAME
LAST night was the first time England’s men’s team had been involved in a match refereed by a woman and it is fair to say Kateryna Monzul made her mark. The Ukrainian, an architecture and town planning graduate, left no-one in any doubt who was in charge with a thunderous display with the whistle and vigorous flourish of five yellow cards.
It was a game which, for all its one-sided nature, needed a firm hand with Andorra set on making up for their talent deficit with feistiness.
England did not particularly take to the approach and the result was a non-contest with a surprising amount of snap.
Any thought that FIFA were lobbing their women officials a soft one was some way wide of the mark.
It was certainly a step up from Monzul’s first men’s international 11 months ago when she officiated in the Nations League group game between San Marino and Gibraltar.
Mind you, she made her mark on that occasion, showing a straight red card to San Marino defender Davide Simoncini.
And by half-time last night she had John Stones and Martinez Alejo in the book after a scuffle which followed a foul by the Andorra defender as well as Jadon Sancho for kicking the ball away.
Sancho then shook hands with the official by way of apology.
England coach Gareth Southgate had spelled out before kick-off that to him the quality of the official was what was important, not the gender and that the appointment was “almost irrelevant.”
Almost but not totally.
There has been some research that shows male footballers will tend to be less aggressive to female referees.
If it is not a good look shouting in the face of a referee of any sex it is even worse to be seen to be bullying a woman official.
When Sergio Aguero put his arm on the shoulder of assistant referee Sian Massey-ellis as he contested her decision to award a throw-in against Manchester City a year ago he came under heavy fire.
There was plenty of whingeing for the official to deal with yesterday from both sides with England unhappy at some of the rough stuff and Andorra generally petulant but nothing nose to nose.
Female officials for male sport is becoming more and more the norm.
This year, Rebecca Welch became the first female referee of an EFL game, overseeing Harrogate Town’s match against Port Vale in April.
Sara Cox recently became the first woman to referee a Gallagher Premiership rugby union match. One issue which cropped up was what the players should call her.
The sport’s preference for ‘sir’ didn’t quite scan so the players settled on ‘ref’ football-style.
There were no such issues last night although there was the hiccup of the fire on Friday at the Estadio Nacional which robbed her of a hi-tech pitch-side monitor.
The stand-in was significantly less impressive – it looked suspiciously like a hastily purchased TV on a trestle table.
It was a full female team of officials last night with Monzul’s compatriots Maryna Striletska and Svitlana Grushko on assistants’ duty and France’s Stephanie Frappart the VAR.
Frappart had to be called into action for England’s opener, overruling a flag from Striletska to allow Ben Chilwell his first goal for his country no doubt triggering the odd Andy Gray and Richard Keys-style jibe about women and their knowledge of the offside rule from the dinosaurs.
A two-minute VAR check, which showed just how close it decision it was for offside, came down in Chilwell’s favour and his first goal for his country was marked with him being swamped by whiteshirted team-mates.
But Striletska got it right first time for Tammy Abraham’s goal after the break.
For an official an imbalance in quality like last night’s can be a complication.
It is human instinct to feel some empathy for an underdog but Monzul’s job was to rise above that and mete out justice not charity.
She did show a hint of heart in deciding a lecture for Rebes Ruiz was sufficient after he committed a second foul not long after being booked in the second half but there was no hesitation whatsoever in awarding England a penalty later after Jack Grealish was tripped, which Jamesward-prowse had saved before scoring the rebound.