I get all of the arguments, but I still think this is a massive gamble by FIFA. I know this group has been wild, but I have to think Spain beats Japan today. If that happens, Costa Rica-Germany is an elimination game similar to what the US-Iran game was yesterday. If the game descends into chaos or isn't controlled well, FIFA will have a whole lot to answer for. I realize there wasn't a great game for this crew, but this just doesn't seem like the game to make a political statement. You have a rough and tumble CONCACAF team with a real chance to advance with one of world soccer's bluebloods staring at the very real possibility of missing the World Cup knockouts two years in a row. I can easily see this one getting chippy and physical quickly.
I imagine we'll see quite a bit of confirmation of priors tomorrow, about men, about women, about Europeans, about Latin Americans.
Of course it's a massive gamble. But also keep in mind that at the end of MD1, this was the match most likely to become a dead rubber. So it's possible that she was penciled in for this match at that point in time, after which Japan screwed the pooch by losing to Costa Rica, thus making this match extremely relevant. Another factor in the scheduling of Frappart may be that she was physically unable to referee for a few days because of the biological fact that she is a woman of reproductive age.
I can’t save someone from their own opinion. But @mfw13 if you want to delete that, let me know. Otherwise it will just stay for everyone to see. Oof.
I know this post and any follow up replies to it are going to get deleted but this comment belongs in the hall of fame for this board. I can guarantee There will never be a more outrageously hilarious comment posted here than this and I’m glad I was here to see it
I feel bad that my comment was even quoted for that. I feel like my post was a legitimate item concerning the stakes of that game and Frappart’s comparative inexperience. I sure didn’t think it would go down THAT road.
Good sir, Delete your post. Delete your account. Take your computer to the landfill. Then go review basic standards for human interaction. After all that, we still don't want you back here.
If you think it should be deleted that's fine with me.....but pretending it's not a relevant issue when discussing her scheduling seems to me to be ignoring an obvious factor related to female officials at a month-long tournament. Anyway, I edited my comment to be more circumspect, since it appears to have offended some posters.
mfw brings up a...point. Anyone who has seen the movie Anchorman understands that certain animals, like bears, are attracted to areas where female referees may officiate football matches. Does Qatar even have security trained to handle bears running on to the pitch and wreaking havoc? They haven't done so well with protestors so far. I fear for everyone's safety. /s/
As a woman who lurks in this forum, I can't believe you're doubling down. It wasn't offensive because you referred to menstruation by name, just to be clear.
man I’m not offended at all by it. It’s just so ridiculous and hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at loud at a post on this forum before, even the silly “things you hear/see/say” post where I could see some dumb thing come from a coach player or spectator mouth. Never expected to see it come from the World Cup assignments thread
As a lowly AYSO referee, I come here to read and learn, not to comment. But this discussion has been, um, stunning as well as validating. Few men have the chutzpah to publicly express what they really think about women daring to undertake professional challenges. I'm still a skinny little girl on the soccer pitch, but at least I have a big whistle.
Are you referring to the “monthly cycle” comment or the discussion about posters thoughts in the overall assignment of frappart to this game.
Overall. I'm not qualified to evaluate the skills of the crew. But the gist of some of the comments here -- it's the kind of stuff I've heard all my life, usually from men who've had too much to drink. "You're only in this job because you're a woman." "You're just going to get pregnant and quit." "The last woman I hired ran off with her boyfriend" (so presumably the boyfriend's boss won't hire any more men because they might run off with girlfriends?). And, once a woman is of an age where she probably won't get pregnant "you're a little too senior to do this." Without knowing any of tomorrow's referees, I do know that this crew is fully aware of the significance of this assignment. They know that people will be hypercritical, and that they have to go out there and do their best, trying not to dwell on the fact that their performance will be heavily scrutinized and will reflect on women in referee roles everywhere. As for women not being able to deal with a bunch of amped-up players. Really? There are female teachers in high schools dealing with worse behavior from hormonal teens every single day!
It seems like you didn’t actually read any of the comments here and are just thinking that everyone here is trashing the assignment just because she’s a woman and are bringing in your own personal experience bias to judge this. I direct you to this comment from mass ref who is one of the most knowledgeable and insightful posters about referee stuff on here. His comment is fully focused on her experience as a referee and why she really isn’t qualified to do a game of this magnitude. I believe he also said later that a male referee with her experience level would not sniff this assignment and if one received it, it would be highly criticized as well. I’m sorry but everyone here knows that FIFA had a motive when it came to selecting frappart to even be in this World Cup. It doesn’t make us sexist or misogynistic to say so. They put a World Cup in a horribly repressive regime and received a ton of criticisms for it, and they think that if they assign a completely unqualified female referee in the game to be the first woman to ever referee a World Cup match, and not only that but a full female referee crew, in an actually consequential game (rather than a game between two eliminated teams or something) will distract people from the shady dealings they made for this event.
I don't think the concerns here about being able to handle have to do with them being women (at least not from most on this forum). The concern is about being able to handle a game at a higher level than their experience. While Frappart has an impressive record, it is not a record that would be expected to get one to the WC as a referee. If she was a he, I don't think anyone would have advocated for her to get appointed to the WC at all--but might have her on the watch list for the future. And we couple this with not coming as her regular referee team--the norm in the WC--and instead ask her to work with ARs she hasn't worked with so that FIFA can say they had a game reffed by all women. That makes it harder. I'm happy that soccer is, slowly, giving women the opportunity to do men's games--and a number are doing very well at it. But it's a big jump, and I don't think FIFA has done a good job of setting them up for success. But I'm rooting for them both for their own sake and because a lack of success here could set back the progress that has been made--even if it isn't their fault at all.
I have long been on record on here saying Katy Nesbitt should have an on field assignment at this World Cup. She has been at the top of her field at both the domestic and continental level working men’s matches. Had someone like Ted Unkel or Armando Villarreal been assigned Germany-Costa Rica, I’d have the exact same questions. My issues with Frappart are experience based 100%. Four years from now, if she has assignments like Clement Turpin has had, I’ll be the first to welcome and support her in her assignments.
First I don't think you are "lowly" anything, and I hope we will see you in the main ref forum's Q&A down the road. Dreadful circumstances under which to meet, but hello and welcome.
I recognize that engaging here may only dig myself a giant hole I can't get out of, but I've been pretty strident in some of my opinions here so want to explain them as best I can if your issue is with the overall tone of discussion. I hope it also distinguishes my thoughts from the overtly misogynistic statements that have set off this recent flurry of activity, because I feel dirty if I'm even tangentially associated with them. I try to look at all these selections and appointments through the refereeing prism, with the understanding that geopolitics has to influence them for confederational balance. And the simple, unequivocal fact is that Frappart should not be at this tournament if the goal was to select the best referees. That doesn't mean she will perform poorly. It doesn't mean I wish her to perform poorly. Exactly the opposite in both cases, in fact. I think she'll do fine and I hope she does fine. But there are mid-level international male referees who I'd say the same thing about tomorrow (not qualified to be there, but likely to do fine and hope they do fine). The underlining point here for me is that this is supposed to be the elite of the elite (not withstanding geographic requirements) and that the competition to get to this World Cup is incredibly fierce. Frappart's route went around that competition. It sounds sexist, so I even hesitate to type it but in this case it is undeniable that she is only at this tournament because she is a woman. She did not work EURO. She had not worked a UCL match until she was given a meaningless one this month. She does not get any top men's WCQs. She has not refereed men's matches at FIFA events below the senior World Cup level. She is not a top referee in Europe. In fact, it's not even close. She's in the #8-12 range in France insofar as referee rankings go. If she was a man, she would not even be considered for the World Cup, nevermind selected and appointed to one. And then to be given an elimination match on the third matchday? Again, things can sound sexist without being so. It is an undeniable fact that she is on this match because of her gender. No male referee would ever be given this match with the same CV that she has. As I've said before, if there is a virtue in having female referees on male matches (and I accept the argument that there is) then it should be done right. Build a plan and execute it. Put women in the matches that feed up to a tournament appointment like this. Get the top ones on more men's WC and continental qualifiers. Get them into the continental club competitions regularly. Get them to EUROs or the equivalent. Have them on the WC candidates' list so they go to the men's U17s and U20s and Olympics... and actually work matches. If you do that over 2-6 years, you can ensure the best female referees are doing all the same things that the best male referees are doing and then it's a true competition to get named. Then you have, say, a recognizable female UCL and Olympic referee making her debut on the 2026 or 2030 stage. Instead, FIFA decided not just to short-circuit the process, but to skip it. And now you have female referees working their first truly top male international match on what will be many of the players' (at least on the CRC side) biggest match of their lives. One AR hasn't even worked a qualification match. The crew has never worked together. I trust they will do okay, but they were not set up to succeed here. And I don't think it's sexist to say that. Again, if a male crew was thrown together like this at the last moment with the same level of experience, we'd be so shocked that we wouldn't even know where to begin criticizing the appointment. But because it's a crew of women, we're supposed to be silent and pretend it's deserved just because it's historic? Look at it this way, Istvan Kovacs did the UEFA Conference League Final this year, refereed at EUROs last year, and did a UCL semifinal. You could make an argument that he's one of the top 5 referees in Europe on a given day. He has been relegated to fourth official duties for this tournament because one European had to bite that bullet. Meanwhile, Frappart has the whistle on an elimination match. If we look at this ignore gender and focus on quality and fairness, that's a travesty. We are a bit of a niche community here, along with a couple others online, that really follow elite international refereeing. I just don't think you can expect people who have a strong grasp of this stuff and offer (or attempt to offer) objective analysis on all-things refereeing to suddenly turn that perspective off here. So that's where I land where I do on this. If circumstances were different, I'd be all about this. To give a hypothetical, I think Tori Penso is working herself into the upper half of MLS referees and I think she deserves a playoff match soon. But I wouldn't sit here and tell you she deserved it if she got MLS Cup a few weeks ago just because it would have been historic. And, just as importantly, there's been a plan to work her through USL up into MLS and have her be ready for each challenge she gets. Again, that's not how Frappart was managed or selected here. I think it's reasonable to wish Frappart success tomorrow, believe she will get it, and be happy that a historic moment occurred. But at the same time, I also know this is a political ploy by FIFA, it was not done on the merits, and it was not done in a methodical way that best set everyone up for success (even if it is, on the day, a successful match). And saying that, I hope, isn't interpreted as being sexist or misogynist.
Korea v. Portugal: Referee: Facundo TELLO (ARG) AR 1: Ezequiel BRAILOVSKY (ARG) AR 2: Gabriel CHADE (ARG) 4th: Maguette NDIAYE (SEN) VAR: Nicolas GALLO (COL) AVAR: Juan SOTO (VEN) Offside VAR: Bruno BOSCHILIA (BRA) Support VAR: Armando VILLARREAL (USA)