Refereeing of women’s football needs work. Here is the plan to tackle it | Suzanne Wrack


Full-time officials for Women’s Super League and a fast-track pathway for female referees are among the ideas

Consider these three incidents: the Chelsea midfielder Drew Spence cynically scything down Arsenal’s Kim Little, breaking one of Little’s legs, but picking up only a yellow card; David McNamara’s rock, paper, scissors debacle; and Phil Neville questioning two penalty shouts and a disallowed goal against Australia.

This season the standard of refereeing in the women’s game has been under the microscope. Except now, with a fully professional top division and more televised coverage than ever, there are a lot more eyes peering through that microscope.

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