Refereeing The World

Etsuko Fukano, Japan

Goal Click teamed up with FIFA to tell the story of the 2018 FIFA U17 Women's World Cup in Uruguay from the perspective of players, referees, journalists and photographers. Etsuko Fukano from Japan is a FIFA referee instructor. She took photos from a refereeing session at the 2018 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, where referees are shown analysis clips of their matches.

In the debrief meeting the referees are asked for their decision on a video clip from a previous game. Everyone must make a decision (in this case they showed the yellow cards) and then a discussion ensues. The referees closest to the camera are from Japan, Makoto Bozono, Yoshimi Yamashsita, and Naomi Teshirogi.  All three were selected to the Women’s World Cup in France 2019 following their performances in Uruguay.

These three referees are from Benin, Rwanda and Mali (representing CAF). The middle referee is Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda, who was selected for the Women’s World Cup in France 2019. They are taking part in a regular referee debrief where the referees are shown the mistakes and good decisions from their matches the day before. All the referees are in the meeting together. They have to be prepared to describe what happened and their rationale in these meetings.

This was a daily meeting with the referees.  Two instructors Jorge Larrionda (Uruguay) and Ana Paula Olivera (Brazil) discussed the tournament as the referees receive some administrative information.  On the background screen are the images from the FIFA referee dinner the night before.  Each confederation is represented in a photo.