Reluctant referee Yamashita on brink of World Cup history

TOKYO: Yoshimi Yamashita had to be "dragged along" to officiate her first match - now she's making history as one of the first women referees at a men's World Cup.

Japan's Yamashita is one of three women on the list of 36 referees for Qatar, alongside France's Stephanie Frappart and Rwanda's Salima Mukansanga.

Her appointment in May marked the latest milestone in her fast-rising career, after becoming the first woman to take charge of an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League match the previous month.

Yamashita, 36, said she felt "pride and responsibility" after being chosen for Qatar, where there will also be three women for the first time among 69 assistant referees.

She first picked up a whistle at the insistence of university friend Makoto Bozono, who also went on to become an international referee and was an assistant at the 2019 Women's World Cup.

Yamashita was reluctant at first but she was hooked by the experience.

"Bozono half-dragged me along to a game and that was how I started," she said.

"When you do one game, it makes you want to do it again better. You think of all the things you should be doing."

Yamashita, who became Japan's first woman professional referee in August, realised she "might be able to make a contribution to women's football in Japan" when she began to take charge of matches at higher levels.

She became an international referee in 2015 and officiated at the Under-17 Women's World Cup in Jordan in 2016 and again two years later in Uruguay.

In 2019, she stepped up to a senior level at the Women's World Cup in France alongside Bozono and fellow Japanese official Naomi Teshirogi.

The trio broke new ground the same year when they became the first all-female team to officiate a men's match in