Who is England vs Senegal assistant referee Kathryn Nesbitt?

THIS World Cup might be controversial for many reasons but in one big way it is breaking the glass ceiling for women working in men’s football.

American lineswoman Kathryn Nesbitt is among the first ever female cohort at a World Cup – and she is running the lines during England’s last-16 match against Senegal.

PAKathryn Nesbitt was assistant referee working alongside Ivan Barton for the England vs Senegal World Cup last-16 tie[/caption]

Here is all you need to know about the female official.

Who is World Cup assistant referee Kathryn Nesbitt?

Nesbitt became the first woman to officiate a championship match in professional sports in the United States when she took charge of the MLS Cup match between Columbus Crew and Seattle Sounders in 2020.

At Qatar she has been a VAR official for the game between Germany and Japan, a match where Japan had a goal disallowed, before going on to win 2-1.

She told Fifa.com: “I started as a kid as a summer job, and that kept me involved in soccer and eventually kept me involved in sports.

“It can be competitive in its own sense as well, so to have those opportunities to strive to be the best at something in kind of an athletic form was great for me, so that’s really what pushed me to keep moving forward with it.”

Nesbitt is also a qualified professor of chemistry, she started her own lab at Towson University in Maryland.

She added: “My background in research is on figuring out better ways to analyze brain chemicals, and our lab focused on developing, improving and optimizing the techniques for sampling brain chemicals and then analyzing them.”

Nesbitt also attended St John Fisher and Pittsburgh University.