Rwanda’s top women referee Salma Rhadia Mukasanga is one step closer to refereeing on football’s biggest stage after her name was included in the FIFA 2019 Women’s World Cup Candidates Program for prospective match officials.

Mukasanga is one of the six centre referees selected from the Confederation of African Football (CAF), according to a statement released on Thursday by the local football governing body, FERWAFA.

"This is an exceptional honour as only 45 referees and 88 assistant referees have been selected as candidates from over 750+ women FIFA referees/assistant referees worldwide,” FIFA’s Head of Refereeing Massimo Busacca said in the appointment letter sent to FERWAFA.

He added that, "Our goal at FIFA is to select the world’s best match officials, for the world’s best competitions – the FIFA World Cup(s).”

The program seeks to prepare prospective FIFA World Cup referees through fitness monitoring, psychological analysis of game demeanor, and testing of the FIFA Laws of the Game.

FIFA has launched a three-year plan for development and monitoring of the Women’s World Cup candidates over the next 3 years in order to achieve their shared goals.

The candidates programme starts this year with a FIFA seminar due in Portugal in February for all the candidate referees and this will be followed by the Algarve Cup for 12 referees & 24 assistant referees.

The selected officials will then be sent to Zurich for final preparations from where the best referees and assistant referees will be selected for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France 2019.

Mukasanga began her refereeing career in 2007 before becoming an international referee in 2012.

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