Nine PRO officials selected for the FIFA Women’s World Cup
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup will have nine officials from the Professional Referee Organization working across games in Australia and New Zealand from July 20 to August 20, 2023.
The group includes referees Katja Koroleva and Tori Penso, assistant referees Chantal Boudreau, Felisha Mariscal, Brooke Mayo, and Kathryn Nesbitt, and video match officials Carol Anne Chenard, Drew Fischer, and Armando Villarreal.
Two-time NWSL Challenge Cup Final referee Koroleva will participate in her second World Cup after being a fourth official at the 2019 tournament in France. She is joined on the referee roster by Tori Penso, who made her on-field MLS debut in 2020 and joined the FIFA international panel the following year before working the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2022.
The four PRO assistant referees who have received call-ups all officiated at the Concacaf Women’s U-20 Championship last year, along with Koroleva and Penso. They have almost 30 years of combined FIFA experience, with three of them – Boudreau, Mariscal and Nesbitt – having worked the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France. Furthermore, Nesbitt recently returned from the men’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar, where she was assigned to 11 games, including the final.
Fellow men’s World Cup officials Fischer and Villarreal will travel to Australia and New Zealand as video match officials. The former most recently worked as VAR for France’s semifinal win over Morocco, with Villarreal as Support VAR, a role he also performed for the African side’s third-place playoff against Croatia.
Chenard refereed at the 2011 and 2015 women’s World Cups during her 16 years on the FIFA international panel and will return to the biggest stage in the booth, being one of the first six women from across the world to be selected as a VMO for a World Cup.
PRO would like to congratulate all the officials that will form part of the team of 33 referees, 55 assistant referees, and 19 video match officials for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.