Megan’s story and the fight against abuse in refereeing
I met Megan through the Women’s Sport Collective, after I put out a call looking for women willing to share their stories and perspectives for our series. When she replied to my message, I didn’t yet realise that she was about to open an entire world to me: the often invisible, and rarely told, world of female football referees.
Most people will have heard of Rebecca Welch, who made history as the first woman to referee a Premier League match. Her achievement marked a turning point for visibility. Yet, beyond the headlines, there is still surprisingly little literature, data, or storytelling around women referees – both past and present. Nationally, there are around 36,000 registered referees in England, and only about 3,000 of them are women. The numbers alone help explain why female referees remain such a rarity on pitches across the country, and why visibility still matters so deeply.
Historically, referees in early women’s games of association football in the nineteenth century were almost exclusively men. This was partly because football itself was governed, organised, and regulated by male-dominated institutions, but also because women’s participation in sport was still framed as something that required male supervision.
By the late Victorian period, women’s football matches, including charity games and exhibition events, were often officiated by male officials, coaches, or club representatives, reinforcing the idea that authority on the pitch belonged to men. Even when women played, decision-making power remained firmly off-limits.
However, by the early 1900s, the first traces of women officiating began to emerge, particularly in educational and school settings. As football became embedded in physical education, women teachers increasingly stepped in to referee schoolboy matches when male staff were unavailable. This was less about recognition and more about necessity, but it quietly challenged prevailing assumptions about who could hold authority in sport.
These early women referees rarely appeared in official records, newspapers, or governing body archives. Their work was informal, local, and largely invisible, which explains why so little documentation exists today. Yet their presence matters. They represent the earliest examples of women not only participating in football, but actively enforcing its rules, managing conflict, and controlling the game.
This quiet, often overlooked involvement laid the foundations for future generations of women referees, even if progress would be slow, fragmented, and repeatedly disrupted, most notably by the FA’s 1921 ban on women’s football in England, which stalled development for decades. The history of women referees, much like that of women’s football itself, is one of persistence in the shadows long before visibility and recognition arrived.
Before speaking with me, Megan had already shared her experiences publicly. She appears in a UEFA-produced video examining the impact of physical and mental abuse on referees at every level of the game. The video brings together first-hand testimonies from elite officials and football figures such as Luís Figo and Esteban Cambiasso, with a clear message at its core: abuse against referees is abuse against football itself. Readers who want to discover more about Megan’s story and the reality of referees, can watch the video alongside this piece.
Becoming a referee: turning abuse into purpose
When I asked Megan when she decided to become a referee, her answer surprised me. “I was never really interested in playing,” she told me. “I preferred watching football or listening to it on the radio and supporting my team.”
The turning point came when her younger brother, then 11, was involved in a match where the referee was subjected to what Megan describes as “quite horrific abuse.” Watching from the sidelines, she was deeply affected.
“I came away from that game talking to my dad about match officials and the abuse they suffer,” she explained. Her father had been a referee himself for around 20 years, although he had stopped officiating about a decade earlier. Those conversations stayed with her and eventually led her to sign up for a refereeing course seven years ago and join the Worscestershire FA .
What makes Megan’s story particularly striking is that her motivation was born not from ambition or career planning, but from empathy.
“I’ve got a disability, which means my brain processes things a little bit differently,” she shared. “My main thing is that I want to help people. I want everyone to enjoy playing football.” That match her brother played in became a catalyst. “My brain turned it around and said: you can become a match official and try to make every game not that game. Every game I’m involved in, my aim is to never have that kind of situation and abuse.”
From the very start, Megan saw refereeing not just as a role, but as a way to actively change the culture of the game.
“Ever since I’ve started, I’ve very much been of the opinion that by me doing refereeing, I can change things.”
A male-dominated space, on and off the pitch
Football remains a predominantly male environment, and refereeing arguably even more so. When Megan first became a match official, she knew of only one other woman refereeing locally.
“She was nice enough,” Megan said, “but she wasn’t necessarily what a teenager might need at that point. Most of the other referees I knew were white men over a certain age. And that’s fine until abuse happens specifically because you’re a woman.”
From the beginning, she noticed the surprised looks. “No one’s first thought is, ‘oh, the girl over there is the match official.’”But surprise soon turned into something far more serious.
The first major incident of abuse happened when Megan was just 16. During an under-14s match, a parent ran onto the pitch, raised his fists at her, and he said “women shouldn’t be involved in football. That I was the reason women shouldn’t be involved,” she recalled. “Some quite horrific words.”
She was still a child. The situation only ended when two coaches intervened and pulled the man away. “It was a horrible experience,” she said. “And at the time, I didn’t know how to address it. I took 2 weeks out because I didn’t know if I wanted to be a referee anymore.”
She spoke to her dad, who offered support, but there was a missing piece: someone who truly understood what it meant to be a woman in her position. That changed unexpectedly. Through a connection, Megan’s experience reached Rebecca Welch, who called Megan and her parents. “She talked about how she herself had been abused for being a woman,” Megan said. “It was inspiring to hear how she dealt with it, and at the time she was still officiating.” That conversation mattered. It offered validation, solidarity, and proof that surviving abuse did not mean giving up.
Sexism, isolation, and underreporting
Abuse hasn’t disappeared. Megan has faced comments about her body and her clothing, remarks never directed at male referees wearing the exact same kit. But perhaps the most damaging aspect of refereeing as a teenage girl is how isolating it can be.
“Refereeing is so isolating that unless someone reports it, a lot of the time no one ever knows,” she explained. “You’re there on your own. There’s no one safeguarding you in that moment.”
This isolation contributes to widespread underreporting. “There are so many cases the FA or leagues don’t know about,” Megan said. “If no one tells you, you might never even realise that what’s being said to you is wrong.” It’s no surprise, she added, that many referees – of all genders and ages – eventually quit. “I know so many people who have stopped because of abuse.”
How referees are trained, and where the system fails
Megan officiated her first match at just 14 years old, after completing a county FA refereeing course. Today, that course lasts only two days and is more of a whistle-stop tour than a detailed course.
After completing the course and refereeing five matches, a referee is fully qualified. Safeguarding training is mandatory, as are DBS checks for youth football, but ongoing education is limited. “If you qualify at 21,” Megan explained, “you could reach 31 and never have another test, assessment, or bit of support – unless you actively go looking for it.” There is no systematic follow-up, no requirement to prove referees are keeping up with updated laws of the game, and no guaranteed welfare checks. “This is one of the biggest problems with refereeing in this country,” she said. “If I could wave my magic wand that would be one of the first things I would fix because it’s a massive problem.”
And the consequences ripple outward, affecting referee retention, performance, and ultimately how officials are perceived and treated.
Pathways, pay, and visibility
In England, referees can progress through either the men’s or women’s football pathways – regardless of their own gender. Some women, like Premier League assistant referee Natalie Aspinall, have progressed through the men’s pathway, while others focus primarily on women’s football.
At grassroots level, pay is fixed per league and match. “I get paid a flat fee of £45 to referee a game,” Megan said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, the fee is the same.” Refereeing isn’t Megan’s full-time job. She works in a primary school as a teaching assistant and sports coach, refereeing two or three matches most weekends. “It helps pay the bills,” she said, “but it’s not something I could mentally do every day.” She also noted that costs like petrol and travel for away games are significant, and pay increases each year mainly to offset these rising expenses, rather than reflecting gender or performance differences.
Still, visibility matters deeply to her.
“One of the reasons I love being a female referee is showing that this is something girls can do,” she told me. “Sometimes just turning up on a pitch is enough.” She recently had a moment that stayed with her: a team captain told her that her daughter was watching from the sidelines and thought it was “really cool” to see a woman officiating. “That’s why representation matters,” Megan said. “If you can see it, you can be it.”
The Lionesses effect and what comes next
Megan firmly believes that the rise of the Lionesses and the growing profile of women’s football has had a knock-on effect for referees too. “I referee in girls’ leagues now that simply didn’t exist when I was growing up,” she said. “Girls can look at the Lionesses – or at me – and see there are other roles in football beyond playing.”
She sees this shift even in her classroom, where children in year six, now talk knowledgeably about women’s football results, players, and leagues. “That is a change that I love to see happening!”
Building the support that doesn’t yet exist
Mentorship, Megan believes, is crucial and still painfully lacking. “In my county’s FA there is a mentor system, but most mentors are men of a certain age,” she explained. “And while that’s valuable, there are experiences only female referees can relate to.” That gap has pushed Megan to act. She is currently working to set up a support group for female referees in her county ( and I am so looking forward to hear more about this) and is already part of a national Women’s Referees Association network.
“I know that if I send a message, someone will reply,” she said. “I just wish you didn’t have to go searching for that support.” She is convinced that accessible, built-in support networks would improve retention, wellbeing, and performance across the board.
Advice for the next generation
Megan’s message to young women who want to work in football is simple: look beyond the pitch. “For a football match to run, you need so many people beyond the 22 players,” she said. “Officials, coaches, organisers, administrators, all of it matters. If you want a job in football, there is absolutely one there for you.”
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This conversation is part of Wempower’s new series Level the Playing Field, dedicated entirely to women in sport. Each Monday, we publish a new story highlighting the women reshaping the world of sport — on and off the field. To read more inspiring stories of everyday women making a real difference in the world, be sure to check out the latest edition of Wempower magazine, or listen to our podcast.
