Mary Ndidi Patience and Mimisen Agatha Iyorhe have been selected by CAF for the upcoming Total Energies WAFCON games set to take place in Morroco with Madu included in the main center referees list and Agatha as an assistant referee.
The Nigerian duo are the only representative who made the list from the continent out of 24 selected African countries, 40 match officials for the TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.
The tournament will be played between 02 July and 23 July 2022 in Rabat and Casablanca with the list comprising of 16 referees, 16 assistant referees and eight Video Assistant Referee (VAR) from 24 countries have been selected following a rigorous process.
This is a process that started a few years ago with 226 women match officials that were evaluated over this period – a product of CAF’s mission to improve the standard of match officiating in Africa and creating world class referees.
Rwandan Salima Mukansanga, who made history at the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations Cameroon 2021 by becoming the first woman to referee a match at the competition and was recently selected as the only women referee from Africa to FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 headlines the list alongside Bouchkra Karboubi (Morocco) and Carine Atezambong (Cameroon) – all part of that historic game in Cameroon.
CAF Director of Refereeing Eddy Maillet said: “Africa has made serious leaps in the development of women match officials. This final list compromises of currently the best in the continent. It took us a long time to get here. The several workshops and training camps we held assisted us in getting to the final decision.
“It was essential for us to bet on top quality, refereeing being one of the main priorities of CAF. And to fine-tune the last details, we are organizing a preparation course for all the referees of the competition, starting from 25 June 2022 in Rabat.”
The training and development of the referees included practical sessions in matches. CAF has been encouraging women referees to officiate at men national leagues in the continent.
The opening match of the TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, Morocco 2022 will feature hosts Morocco and debutants Burkina Faso on 02 July 2022 Prince Moulay Abdellah Complex, Rabat.
