Go Team USA! (Oh, I Don’t Mean the Men on the Field)

As fun as World Cup season is, there’s something naturally unappealing about a full 39 days dedicated to featuring, celebrating, and cheering on scores of sweaty men as they combat… other sweaty men. Well, unless their athletic fates are in the hands of women.

For the second time in history, an all-women’s team of referees officiated a Men’s World Cup match on Thursday—between the Czech Republic and South Africa—marking also the first time that all of them were from the U.S. Go team! 

“Most of the time, I don’t think about it; we are just a team of officials,” Brooke Mayo, one of the referees, told Yahoo Sports of her all-women crew. “But then you have an instructor come up and ask for a picture because his daughter is inspired by us, thousands of miles away. Or an older female FIFA volunteer, pulling you aside and saying how proud she is to see women at this level and how it never seemed possible when she was younger.” 

Mayo was joined on the pitch by Tori Penso and Kathryn Nesbitt—the latter being the only one of the three who also served as one of six women to officiate games in the Qatar World Cup in 2022. Speaking to the Washington Post at the time, she said, “Just being able to witness females at this event now makes this realistic for all women, whether it be refereeing, whether it be in a different sport, whether it be in something completely different.” 

The Qatar games was also the first and most recent time an all-women’s referee team graced the pitch, when Stéphanie Frappart, Nezua Back and Karen Díaz oversaw a game between Germany and Costa Rica. Before then, no other woman had served as a referee in the men’s tournament throughout FIFA’s 122-year history—though in 1991, Cláudia Vasconcelos Guedes of Brazil became the first female referee to take the lead at one of the football association’s women’s games. 

Still, these milestones are only a glossy side of an otherwise grim picture. Women are underrepresented in the world of refereeing, and  especially so in the U.S. While women typically make up 30% of referees internationally, in the U.S. that figure is only about 22%. Sigh.

Even so, many remain positive that Thursday is only a trend set to grow further. “Even though I view us as just a normal trio that has earned their place at this FIFA World Cup, I know we represent something bigger than ourselves,” Mayo said. “There is no limiting factor for you to achieve your dreams as long as you are willing to sacrifice, put in the work and take advantage when the opportunity comes.”

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