4 December 2018 – The 2018 SASOL Women championships which kicked off on Tuesday, 4 December in Kimberley’s Gaeleshewe will see a number of  SAFA’s top female match officials in action.

These female match officials are drawn from all 9 Provinces.

Akhona Makalima, Sebabatso Malope, Vhahangwele Nembaleni and Thembisa Siyatsha are some of the experienced current and former FIFA referees and assistant referees who will share their experience with the new and upcoming ones like Florence Moshupya, Mokgado Lebopa, Promise Nyathi and Zanele Ntombela.

The 18 referees and assistant referees have been chosen to be part of the tournament as a way of continuing with identifying those who will form part of the national panel to service the National Women’s League scheduled to kick off next year. The Referees Department is happy with the progress of many of the match officials who are being trained in various provinces.

“Many more young referees will be officiating during the upcoming Summer Games in Johannesburg, from the 10th of December,” said Tenda Masikhwa, SAFA’s head of referees.

“We will have referees as young as 14 years from provinces like KZN, Gauteng, Mpumalanga as part of the big refereeing team. We will have 82 referees and 12 assessors for the Summer Games”.

Akhona Makalima is the Captain of the group and she will share some information based on what she learnt in the US, where she spent five weeks on a Leadership Programme geared towards the development of women in sports.

Cindy Ndlala, Yonela Mahamba and Sharon Lombard will be assessing referees’ performance throughout the tournament.