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| Gloria Sena Kumedzro, a Class One Assistant Referee from Ho. |
It is not always the case for women to be recognized in the game of sports. Football has become a globally accepted sport with great passion and has brought many to appreciate the works of these referees as they are required to make a decision in a split of seconds.
Football, has a 'judge' called Referees. The referees include the Center Referee and the two assistants on both sides of the pitch. The introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) has come to make the game easy to determine other acts of players during the game which eludes referees and are unable to note.
Referees until recently, have mostly been men who are seen handling most difficult games over the world, but today, the narratives have changed such that, we find women who equally officiates men's games and does it better!
Just as it was the case of the first female referee to officiate men's football game, Stephanie Frappart despite a female, made a strong case to officiate the Uefa Champions League and World Cup qualifying match. The wind of change has gone a long way to have other women on board like Africa's Salima Mukansanga and others to be appointed in men's football games. This has indeed motivated other female referees across the globe to be at their best in officiating matches.
Gloria Sena Kumedzro, an SHS student who resides in Ho, in the Volta Region having a time with 24hourssports.com, told the online portal when she started her career as a referee.
"I started my career as an assistant referee at the age of 12 years"
With what motivated Sena to be a referee, she revealed that, her senior brother (Richard Kumedzro) who was already a referee introduced her to some female referees after disclosing to her brother the wish to be a referee.
"I really like watching football, so that alone motivated me to become a referee. Already my brother too was a referee so I asked him to tell me more about refereeing. He even introduced me to the female referees in Ho and that encouraged me to be a referee as I am now"
"I started refereeing when I was in class 6"
"Then, I started coming to training every Saturday with my brother to learn how to flag, there I begun picking it slowly. My first game was in 2016. It was a Division Three game. My Instructor was so amazed about my performance, even the teams were equally surprised because of how smallish I looked to officiate such a game."
Sena Kumedzro rose through the ranks to become a Class One assistant referee after attending series of referee courses. After passing the fitness test in 2020, Sena made the tall list of Women Referees to officiate the Ghana Women's Premier League.
The Class One assistant referee was appointed in the just ended Ghana Women's premier league grande finale between Hasaacas Ladies and Ampem Darkoa Ladies.
The 18 year old girl is currently a final year student of E.P.C Mawuko Girls' Senior High School in Ho.