Female Football Referee Suffers Concussion Breaking Up Player Brawl... Eventually Substituted

Collision During France vs. Netherlands Friendly Match
Falls to the Ground and Withdraws at Halftime

A female football referee was injured and had to be substituted after intervening in a clash between players during a match.

Referee Mathilde Demonsec intervenes to stop a physical altercation between players during the match in Gyeonggi. Screenshot from YouTube 'MOSELLE TV - SPORT'

According to the BBC on the 27th (Korean time), during a friendly match between French professional football club Metz and Dutch club Fortuna Sittard held on the 25th, female referee Mathilde Demonsec, 26, tried to break up a brawl between players and was knocked down on the pitch, suffering symptoms of a concussion.

The incident began in the 40th minute of the first half when players from both teams started a confrontation over pulling each other's jerseys. The tension quickly escalated as more players became involved, and the atmosphere on the pitch turned hostile.

Referee Demonsec, who stepped in to calm the situation, was swept up amid the scuffle and fell hard to the ground. She was holding her arm and lay on the field for several minutes, until assistant referees, security personnel, and medical staff rushed in to stabilize the situation and check on her condition.

While medical staff performed a brief examination, the match was temporarily paused. Spectators and the players of both teams watched anxiously, waiting to see if the game would continue.

After emergency treatment, as play resumed, Demonsec attempted to remain on the pitch by switching from her role as referee to assistant referee for the remainder of the first half. However, she eventually felt unwell and, following the advice of the medical staff, was substituted at halftime and left the field.

In the past, refereeing was considered uncharted territory for women, but now, out of 3,725 FIFA international referees, the number of women has grown to 969.

Last year, for the first time in the 150-year history of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States, a woman served as home plate umpire in a regular season game. In the National Basketball Association (NBA), since the first female referee took the court in 1997, 8 percent of referees are now women. In the National Football League (NFL), the first female referee appeared in a preseason game in 2012. Sarah Thomas, 52, became the first full-time female NFL referee in the regular season in 2015, and went on to officiate at the Super Bowl in 2021.

The expansion of female referees is driven not only by a political message of gender equality, but also by a decline in the popularity of traditional professional sports. For several years, countries have faced a shortage of referees at all levels, from youth leagues to professional clubs. Low pay, increasing verbal abuse and threats from spectators, and the diminishing authority of referees due to the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology have all contributed to a wave of male referees retiring, creating greater opportunities for women.

Nevertheless, female referees, still a minority, remain vulnerable to sexist attacks. In April, Brazilian football star Neymar was disciplined and nearly banned from the World Cup after expressing dissatisfaction with a female referee's call in a domestic match, saying, "The referee must have been on her period."

At the French Open in May, a Paraguayan tennis player was fined half of his prize money (over 100 million won) after saying, "Only men should be referees."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.