The Rwanda Football Federation last year announced that Salma Mukansanga, its only female referee would take charge of the men’s U-23 Africa Cup of Nations Egypt 2019.
It made her the first African woman to officiate an international match featuring men.
Before her promotion, the 28-year old was selected by the world football governing body FIFA to be among match officials for the 2019 Women’s World Cup which took place in France last June.
She is also the only female central referee in the 2018/2019 Azam Rwanda Premier League season.
Reputed as best and most popular female referee Rwanda has ever produced, Mukansanga was the sole African match official at the U-17 Women’s World Cup, and is one of only three African referees at last year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup along with Gladys Lengwe of Zambia and Ethiopia’s Lidya Tafesse Abebe.
Born and raised in Rusizi, a district in West Province, the young lady who never dreamed she would became an international referee decided to pursue her studies at the University of Gitwe (Central) where she later graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing and Midwifery.
With a genuine passion for sports, Mukansanga was keen to become a professional basketball player in her youthful days, but this was never to be, especially due to limited access to basketball infrastructure and decent coaching at university.
Rather, she switched her passion to football refereeing during her final year at the St Vincent de Paul Musanze secondary school before earning her first certificate in match officiating the following year.
After almost a whole year of hard work and extensive learning, Mukansanga started to be assigned some (very few) matches in the men’s second division league and the women’s top tier in late 2008.
Four years later, she was upgraded to a CAF referee and officiated several matches at club and international level, on the continent, but all in the role of an assistant referee.
In 2014 she took charge of her first international game as a centre referee.
The groundbreaking match, for her career, pitted Zambia and Tanzania during qualifiers for the 2014 CAF African Women’s Championship, whose finals tournament was hosted by Namibia.
In 2016, Mukansanga was among 47 referees that handled the African Women Cup of Nations in Cameroon, and was in charge of the tournament’s final match between the hosts and Nigeria’s Super Falcons, which ended 1-0 in favor of the West Africans.
During the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Uruguay from November 13 to December 1 2018, she was privileged to oversee three matches namely, the Group A clash between the hosts and New Zealand, the Group B match between Japan and Mexico and Canada and Germany quarter-final tie.
Thanks to her excellent performance in Uruguay, Mukansanga is among Africa’s three referees was selected by FIFA to oversee the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France.
“Officiating at the World Cup is every referee’s dream, especially when you come from a country like mine,” she told APA.
CU/as/APA