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Women's refereeing on the rise

Reidar Bjørnestad on refereeing at the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship.

By Kevin Ashby

A former international referee, Reidar Bjørnestad, is one of the men accompanying and assessing the team of officials at the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship.

Educating referees
Bjørnestad is a member of the UEFA Referees' Committee and for seven years has been in charge of educating both male and female referees in his homeland for the Norwegian Football Federation. He retired from international competition in 1986 after three operations in one year and is now passing on his experience in Leipzig, where he spoke to uefa.com.

uefa.com: Who selected the referees for this tournament and how did they do it?

Reidar Bjørnestad: They are selected by the UEFA Referees' Committee and the refereeing unions. We have information from previous matches and we tried to have neutral referees and assistants. However, we do have two Germans acting as fourth officials but they did not appear in matches involving Germany or Germany's group.

uefa.com: Have most of the referees officiated at a UEFA final tournament before?

Bjørnestad: No. Some of them have officiated at mini-tournaments and qualification matches but most of them are inexperienced at final tournaments. We do have female assistants who have performed that role in [UEFA] Intertoto Cup matches and male Under-17 matches.

uefa.com: What is your role at this event?

Bjørnestad: The Referees' Committee will always try to have at least one but normally two representatives at a tournament. Our duty is to make sure that all the participants are observed and assessed and recieve feedback from every match using video when possible. We also go through things we feel they need to work on to extend their capacity, while pointing out positive things which they can keep on board and then add to.

uefa.com: Are officials told to take a different approach to games when the Under-19s are playing, compared to a senior international for example?

Bjørnestad: Referees, like players, will always prepare by thinking a bit about tactics ahead of a match. They know what type of challenge and the style of football which lies ahead. But they absolutely have the same attitude.

uefa.com: Are you pleased with the development of women's refereeeing?

Bjørnestad: Absolutely. Looking back only three or four years I have seen a huge increase in the general standard. I think teams should be aware, as we are at UEFA, that performances of women referees have improved enormously.

uefa.com: It must be excellent news that Nicole Petignat of Switzerland is refreeing a UEFA Cup match on 14 August?

Bjørnestad:
Of course. She has shown in many matches both in Swiss football and in UEFA and FIFA tournaments that she has the capacity to do well. This is just the start of what I think, in refereeing terms, will see us just talking in terms of football rather than men's and women's football. I would also like to point out that there are assistant referees here in Leipzig and many across Europe who work in top-flight men's football. There is also an increasing number of female referees who have refereed in first, second and third division professional football. We are just seeing the start of something.

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