Football Isn’t Just For Boys

Oana, at just 17 years old, in only a year and a half since earning her certification, has refereed over 50 junior and senior matches in Giurgiu County’s Fourth League, both as a central referee and as an assistant referee.

She often hears remarks from the stands—“Couldn’t you ref without fake eyelashes?” or “It’s offside, miss!” At first, these comments used to shake her, but now she barely reacts. Sometimes, she even finds them funny. “I know those people don’t actually know me, and they wouldn’t do anything to me—they’re just frustrated,” she says. That’s what she also tells her father and brother, who often accompany her to matches and struggle to keep quiet in the stands.

She grew up in a small village located 45 minutes from Bucharest, and spent her childhood playing with boys. Ever since she was little, she had a strong sense of fairness. “When we picked teams, the older kids would be in one team, and us, the younger ones, would be in the other. It never felt fair to me, so I’d get upset and go home,” she remembers.

She loves football because it’s a team sport. “I love the adrenaline and the tension in matches.” At ten years old, she played for the boys’ football team in her village alongside her younger brother. At eleven, she joined the girls’ team and played as a defender for over a year, until the team disbanded. “When my playing days ended—because it just wasn’t as easy for a girl to continue football here—I knew I still wanted to be involved in the game.”

Though she sees refereeing as a real career option, she knows that unless she reaches the top level, it will be difficult to make a full living from it. Instead, she wants to become a physical education teacher. After finishing high school in Bolintin Vale, in two years, she plans to apply to the National University of Physical Education and Sports in Bucharest.

The matches she officiates usually take place on Saturdays or Sundays. She bought all her referee gear herself—partly with money saved from her parents and partly from the monthly scholarship she has been receiving since 2023 from UiPath Foundation, through the Own Your Path program, which provides support to high school students to continue their studies.

As part of Own Your Path, she also attends weekly online English lessons on Tuesdays, along with twelve other students. What she appreciates most about the course is the lack of competition. “At school, I find it hard to speak up because of my classmates. I’m afraid they’ll laugh at me,” she admits. She worries about mispronouncing words, but Own Your Path has given her the courage to speak. “During the Own Your Path courses, I’m not afraid to talk. Plus, when we do exercises, we’re split into smaller groups, which helps me interact with others. Besides improving my English, it has also helped me feel more comfortable speaking in public.”

Oana waited until she turned fourteen to enroll in referee school. “I was the first one on the list—and I even brought some classmates along with me,” she recalls. For four months, every Wednesday, she studied the seventeen laws of football, learned how to signal with the referee’s flag, when to give a yellow or red card, and when a free kick should be direct or indirect. At the end of the training, each participant had to referee a match to test what they had learned.

Her first match as an assistant referee was in her own village. The night before, she watched YouTube videos to study how referees position themselves on the field. She was nervous, unsure of her decisions, but looking back, she believes she did well for her first match.

One of the hardest moments she’s had on the field was issuing her first red card. “I knew I had made the right call, but I kept replaying the moment in my head for a long time—wondering if I really did the right thing. Eventually, I asked more experienced referees, and they assured me that my decision was correct.”

All the confidence Oana has in herself is evident on the field, where she feels in control. Even when she receives negative comments during the match, whether from players or supporters, she trusts her instincts and the decisions she makes. “At the end, they come and shake my hand. Sometimes, if they’ve yelled at me or insulted me, they come and apologize,” says Oana. “I feel like I have authority over them.”

Oana’s dream is to referee a match in Romania’s First League, but the road is long. Out of 66 referees in the First League, only four are women, according to the Romanian Central Referees Commission. Two of them are central referees, and two are assistant referees. But Oana is not discouraged by the low number of female referees.

“Football isn’t just for boys,” she believes.

That’s why she says she will continue to ignore the comments from the stands. What matters to her is staying focused on the match—paying attention, minimizing mistakes as much as possible, and making the best call.