Photo taken by Julia Rodrigues / UOL.
The Club World Cup remains the only major men’s competition organized by Fifa where a woman has officiated as a referee during a match. This is Edina Alves Batista, 41, already a legend in her native Brazil. Like the French Stéphanie Frappart, the German Bibiana Steinhaus and a few – too rare – other pioneers, the Brazilian referee relies on professional excellence to push machismo off the field… and from the governing bodies of football.
An exceptional course
February 4, 2021. A historic date, since for the first time in a major men’s competition (therefore excluding youth tournaments) organized by Fifa, the referee quartet included a woman. It was during the match between the Monterrey Tigers (Mexico) and Ulsan Hyundai FC (South Korea). That day, Edina Alves Batista officiated as fourth referee.
Brazilian Edina Alves Batista is not a beginner, having refereed football matches since 1999. She first had a frustrated football career in her native state of Paraná, having to settle for playing futsal. , because the lack of footballers did not allow to align twenty-two young women on the same ground. There was no professional women’s championship in Paraná, so it was impossible to make a living from football as a footballer.
So she became a professional referee in 2000, and since 2014 she has been officiating as a central referee. She has already refereed a dozen matches of the Brazilian Football Championship since May 2019 – it was then fourteen years since the elite footballers had not been under the orders of a woman. She is best known, in France, for having refereed four meetings at the Women’s World Cup in 2019, including the semi-final won by the United States against England.
The Tokyo Olympics are Edina Alves Batista’s next major goal. By aiming as high as possible, so not as a simple substitute or subordinate referee.
Few are elected
Edina Alves Batista is not only part of the female refereeing elite, she is also part of the refereeing elite, period. However, few women referees have ever officiated at an international elite men’s match.
It was a German referee, Bibiana Steinhaus, who became the first woman to referee a men’s match in a major European championship, during a Bundesliga match, in September 2017. Also in Europe, the first woman to having held a referee position at a men’s meeting organized by UEFA is the Swiss Nicole Petignat, who officiated in 2003 in the UEFA Cup. And it was not until December 2020 to see a woman hold the whistle in the Champions League. It was the French Stéphanie Frappart, who had already shown her talent as a central referee during the European Supercup, in August 2019.
A little foresight
Can we reasonably expect to see women blowing the whistle as often as men at elite male encounters? The answer is no, at least for an objective reason: on average, the physique of female referees is inferior to that of male referees. Men’s matches, usually played at a higher physical intensity, thus require the referees to perform faster and more numerous races than on the women’s circuit.
However, some referees have a build, a physical condition and a mental at least equal to the average of their male counterparts. Starting with Bibiana Steinhaus, whose tall stature and physique even impress footballers. Stéphanie Frappart also has superior physical condition, despite a less impressive size that she compensates with her science of (dis) placement.
Subject to physical ability, the other prerequisites for women referees to enter major men’s competitions depend on more or less subjective criteria. Above all, there must be a “political” will favorable to their inclusion, and therefore a will to put an end to the omnipresence of a deleterious machismo.
The other potentially triggering element relates to the quality of training, federal structures, technical infrastructure and support … first in men’s football, since most French women’s clubs remain backed by a men’s club, so to his good results and his goodwill. Even if we can deplore it, clubs like that of Soyaux represent the exception which proves the rule.
A woman referee could not really emerge in men’s football only where there is also a meaningful women’s championship, and vice versa. Because it is first during women’s meetings – and small male categories – that women learn their profession of referee. The quality of a women’s championship will undoubtedly help consolidate their achievements. But you also need an elite men’s championship of sufficient quality to bring out the best referees, regardless of the gender of the person holding the whistle.
The excellence of the clubs and of the national selection, in international tournaments (both men and women), can also contribute to the emergence of women referees of very high level. First, thanks to the prizes won by the teams, which will boost the cash flow and the potential for local investment, whether directly (victory for a women’s club), semi-direct (victory for the national team). female) or indirect (victory of the male club to which the female section is backed up, or victory of the male national team). Then, because it follows an automatic rise in the level of the teams and their supervision, therefore of the national championship and by the very fact of the arbitral body.
Finally, we can cite – and wish – an intensification of exchanges, training and partnerships for the benefit of federations, clubs and other bodies – in particular referees – in emerging football countries.
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