A LADIES' GAME TOO

This is a man's world, this is a man's world... That famous lyric from James Brown was certainly the way football looked at women until recently

- Jerome Damon

The growth of the women's game has certainly left its mark on football. The facts and figures of the 2019 Women's World Cup in France surely debunked the view that football was a men-only sport. In fact, the statistics indicate that of all the sports on the globe, women's football was the fastest growing. With this said, football has had to adjust its thinking to make way for competitive match officials of the fairer gender. They were not prepared to just be a part of football, they wanted - rightfully so and deserved a seat at the high table: the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

But before Doha, there was a seismic shift in refereeing, nowhere more so than in Africa - my Africa, where many men still think of women as inferior. I remember refereeing in the north of Africa in the early 2000's, when seeing women at football matches was completely taboo. Both on- and off the field, men dominated.