‘I see,’ I say, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, as Bibi Steinhaus-Webb, the chief female referee in England, sits in the chair across from me. I forgot to press record for our interview and blurted out: “Now I understand why anyone would want to be a referee.”
Before spending a day at Professional Game Match Authors Ltd’s (PGMOL) elite women’s professional gaming training camp, I struggled to understand why everyone turned to refereeing, a place where your every thought and decision would be parsed, analysed, critiqued and evaluated. rarely praised.
“Why would anyone force themselves to do that?” I used to wonder when the last story emerged of a referee being abused, whether rank-and-file or elite. I know that this is a difficult job, I also know that it requires a lot of effort and a thick skin. But I didn’t To know work. I didn’t see any art in this. I didn’t understand the delicate balance between physical and mental skill required. All I can think of is this: It’s like chess boxing, where opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing, but you do both at the same time.
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At one stage in training camp, at a session of the new International Football Association Board (IFAB), the rules on whether a defender’s touch was intentional or deflected were determined by whether an attacker in an offside position should be tackled. or not, my mind makes a proposition out of left field: ‘I’m unfit and I’d be terrible at this, but God, I want to try.’ I quickly freed myself from this temporary thought and focused on the session again.
The IFAB rule does not seem to be very popular but here they discuss how best to implement it. We watch multiple clips, one at a time, and after each clip, as it plays on a loop, tables are separated to discuss whether contact with the ball was intentional. There is no consensus between the tables every time because how do you determine the player’s intent?
It won’t take long to realize that these officials will need to respond to these events and decide on the player’s intent – or lack thereof – much more quickly than the few minutes of comfortable replays they are given in this boardroom. Can I tell you if there is intent? NO.
“After 90 minutes, with 180 potentially exhausted, the referee still needs to be in the mindset to make the right decisions,” says Steinhaus-Webb. “Have you ever run a marathon? Would you expect a marathon runner to do a complex math exercise as he crossed the finish line? They normally don’t look at the right situation to get the right result, so you have to train a lot harder to make sure you stay mentally fit.
It seems match officials need to adopt a training regime similar to that used by Taylor Swift ahead of her Eras Tour; Taylor Swift was running on the treadmill throughout the three-hour set, singing songs and changing her tempo as she ran. speed depending on the speed of the song. “That’s exactly it,” says Steinhaus-Webb. “That’s a big part of the work they have to do: physical preparation, mental preparation, but there’s also technical preparation.”
Throughout the year PGMOL will host matches and tournaments to create an environment as close to a match environment as possible, but “it won’t be an elite level match, it won’t be Arsenal v Chelsea at the Emirates, that oppressive environment with players of that level. you will never be able to completely recreate that,” says Steinhaus-Webb. “It’s a process, process, process. Just like when you take driving lessons, all you do is learn the processes over and over again. You don’t even think about it when you drive today. This is the state you want to achieve.”
I ask referee Kirsty Dowle, who was applauded by fans off the pitch and praised for her performance in the men’s National League match between Southend United and Oxford City in October, how she implemented the rule changes.
“You don’t,” he says. Teams go and practice every day, kick the ball and work on things. We cannot find this opportunity. But on weekends like this, we watch clips and discuss with each other. I can watch my games and watch my clips. And yes, I don’t do it physically, but I always process it so that when I get out there, I’ve done it almost a thousand times before.”
On the unexpected applause at Southend, Dowle says: “First of all I didn’t realize it was for me, I thought the players had to be somewhere. Second point, if I’m brutally honest, it was a good day for the club, they had won 2-0, the sale of the club was going through. I didn’t do anything overly surprising; “I think it all tied up nicely for the club.”
Dowle was able to quit his job to focus on refereeing full-time, but not everyone is so lucky. This season, 20% of the referees in the women’s game (15 out of 75) are contracted and able to concentrate on refereeing full-time. Steinhaus-Webb says this rate is almost half in the Women’s Super League. “When we arrived, the numbers looked very different,” she says. “We are now halfway through and if we continue at this pace, we are on our way to a very good place.”
Those who cannot work full-time still work to a highly professional standard, with the help of a staff team that has doubled in size since Steinhaus-Webb took over three years ago. For Dowle, giving up work was an “absolute game changer” and allowed him to enjoy refereeing even more. “I was worried that I would put more pressure on myself now that I could pay my mortgage, but only so I could sleep as much as I needed, prepare my meals, watch my matches and have time to talk. “The interest in the coaches is great.”
Steinhaus-Webb and her team are also working to protect those who cannot work full time. The added help was important for Lauren Whiteman, a physical education teacher and assistant referee at the Women’s Championships who was newer to the women’s qualifying group. “I can’t fault the support at all,” she says. “I’ve been through my journey without support before, but not necessarily with a coach and someone I can discuss things with. But this season it was completely different.”
Whiteman used the contact line for the first time this season, manning the lines in a televised match and being assigned to the Manchester City v Liverpool match in the Continental Cup. “I’m not going to lie, I almost dropped my phone,” Whiteman said when she called to say she would be attending the match between the two WSL teams. “It was potentially one of the biggest fixtures you could get there. It was a relief that everything went well. “If you’re given that opportunity, then you really want to make the most of it.”
Emily Carney, another assistant referee who has benefited from being part of the development group set up to give officials the chance to step up a level and try out in 2022, describes the opportunity as “really rewarding”. Carney says he wasn’t the biggest fan of referees as a young player and that his mother told him he was “very mean to referees”. It was also her mother who encouraged her to join the course so that she could understand all the rules. She’s rise was rapid and at an early age she began attending matches with Rebecca Welch and Sian Massey-Ellis as an international assistant and began learning from them.
Some men are leading the ranks in EFL games this season. “When you make the leap you feel like a lot of female match officials have the hope of representing them,” she says.
When Welch took charge of the Premier League match between Fulham and Burnley in December, it was a reward for the introduction of the development group. “I got goosebumps,” says Steinhaus-Webb, while watching Welch in that game. “I’m sitting there watching the game and all I want is for it to go well for him. That’s all I want. No drama, that’s all I want.”
Another source of pride for Steinhaus-Webb is the addition of five new match officials from England to the 2024 Fifa International List. Four of these incumbents are from the select group of women: Georgia Ball, Nicoleta Bria, Sophie Dennington and Emily Heaslip, and there are now 13 women from the UK on the List.
In the closing session on nonverbal communication, Steinhaus Webb places her hands on her hips in a powerful pose. After a few minutes, he has everyone in the room stand up, move their hands into different positions and poses, and discuss the nonverbal consequences of each. He plays with himself, he is aware of himself, and this creates a comfortable, open and fun environment; Much nicer than the match day environment.
“I love refereeing. Taking this course was the best decision of my life,” says Steinhaus-Webb. “I appreciate that it may be difficult for other people to understand, but that’s exactly why I want you to come and see it through my eyes. I want to share it so you can see my passion for it and why I fell in love with it.” this is the thing.