Who is Rebecca Welch? First woman to referee a Premier League game

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Rebecca Welch will develop into the primary lady to referee a Premier League match when she takes cost of Fulham vs Burnley on 23 December.

Welch, from Washington in Tyne and Put on, has earned her first high flight appointment with the whistle shortly after changing into the primary feminine referee to be concerned in an officiating capability within the Premier League.

The 40-year-old operated because the fourth official for Manchester United’s go to to Craven Cottage in November.

Welch already holds the honour of being the primary lady to be appointed to referee an English Soccer League match. She led the workforce of officers for the League Two match between Harrogate and Port Vale in April 2021.

Welch performed soccer from childhood however solely took up the whistle on the age of 27, after been challenged to take action by a good friend.

“I performed soccer and didn’t even take into consideration refereeing till certainly one of my actually good buddies, who’s a referee, refereed us,” she stated in an interview. “I spent the entire sport telling her tips on how to do her job! Her response was, ‘If you happen to suppose it’s that straightforward, give it a go’. That’s the way it occurred and 10 years later right here I’m.”

She certified as an official by the Durham County FA and commenced refereeing in college soccer and in Sunday leagues in Sunderland. She started her refereeing profession in 2010, combining the function with an administrative job within the NHS, earlier than going full-time in 2019.

Welch has usually appeared within the Ladies’s Tremendous League and officiated three video games on the Ladies’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this summer season, after being chosen in Uefa’s elite referees listing.

Amy Fearn turned the primary feminine referee within the EFL in 2010, when she stepped in as an harm substitute for the ultimate 20 minutes of a second-tier match between Coventry and Nottingham Forest.

Earlier this yr, Welch turned the primary lady to referee a males’s Championship match when she took cost of Birmingham v Preston in January. She can also be the primary lady to referee an FA Cup third-round tie, additionally at Birmingham, because the Blues misplaced 1-0 to Plymouth on 8 January.

The Skilled Recreation Match Officers Restricted group (PGMOL), which oversees top-level refereeing in English soccer and is led by chief refereeing officer Howard Webb, has sought to be enhance range amongst its pool of officers.

Sam Allisson would be the first Black referee to take cost of a Premier League fixture in 15 years when he oversees Sheffield United vs Luton on Boxing Day.

In January, Bhupinder Singh Gill turned the the primary Sikh-Punjabi to officiate within the Premier League, as assistant referee for Southampton v Nottingham Forest.