After a decade of making history in soccer, French referee Stéphanie Frappart is using her experience to help more women take up the profession.
Frappart was the first woman to referee a men´s Ligue 1 game in France and the first woman to referee a men´s World Cup match.
The 41-year-old Frappart is working with France’s national postal service, La Poste, on a committee promoting female referees called “Women and Refereeing” in conjunction with its four partner federations: soccer, rugby, handball and basketball. Their ambition is to increase female match officials in all sports in France, which currently has an estimated 80-20 split for male refs.
“It starts with a change in mentality. Football is played more by men and maybe in handball it’s equal. So to begin with you have to increase the numbers of women playing football, which in turn increases the number of referees,” Frappart told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “Last season, we had a 14% increase compared with the season before and now, halfway through the season, we already have 5% more female referees than last season.”
Frappart says the French soccer federation is fully committed to having more female refs and to more women in the sport’s governance. But La Poste’s committee says the main barriers facing aspiring female referees at the outset are lingering sexism and misogyny.
“We remain confronted by certain stereotypes which are difficult to get beyond … something still anchored in certain cultures and mentalities,” Frappart said. “We have to communicate more on the place women have in football and in society. In media terms, the more women’s soccer is shown on television and the more women’s sport is shown on television, that will change things.”
Frappart was also the first woman to take charge of a men´s Champions League match, back in 2020. Across more than a decade officiating in men´s games – including the French Cup final and World Cup qualifiers – has Frappart received sexist comments?
“Not from players and coaches, but from people in the stands,” she said. “There have been some chants and comments.”
Frappart became the first woman to take charge of a professional men’s game when she refereed a second-tier French league match in 2014.