How Welch went from refereeing in Sunday league to being PL's 1st female referee

The first female Premier League referee is a former NHS admin worker who picked up her whistle after a friend grew tired of her criticism during a game and said: 'If you think it's that easy, give it a go.'

Rebecca Welch, 40, will become the first female referee in top-flight history when she takes charge of the Fulham v Burnley match on December 23.

Gaining her place in the world's most watched league is an astonishing achievement for the former amateur footballer, who began her refereeing career juggling Sunday league games in County Durham with her full-time job in the NHS.

Born in Washington, Tyne and Wear, Welch spent much of her childhood playing football with friends on the streets of her home town but was disappointed not to play competitively at school 'as there was no girls football team'.

She said she 'didn't even think about refereeing' until she was challenged to do so by her friend Lindsey Robinson at the age of 27.

'One of my really good friends, who is a referee, refereed us,' she told the Independent. 'I spent the whole game telling her how to do her job! Her response was, ''If you think it's that easy, give it a go.'' That's how it happened'.

Football has a reputation as a male dominated sport and Welch has sometimes faced hostility, with two 17-year-old boys arrested last month for alleged misogynistic chanting towards her during a Birmingham City game.

But Welch has said her gender 'has never really been a problem' and may have either helped her career rather than hindered it.

'In reality, if anything, I was probably treated with a little more respect by the players because I was a female ref,' she told the Sunderland Echo in 2021. For me, being a female referee has never been problematical.'

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