New milestone for women in football

Domenech yellow cards Atletico star Aguilera

MADRID, Spain -- A football match between two of Spain's most bitter rivals has been refereed by a woman for the first time.

Carolina Domenech took charge as Real Madrid beat Atletico Madrid 3-2 in an exhibition game before 50,000 fans in the famous Santiago Bernabeau Stadium.

The game launched what it is hoped will be an annual tournament designed to promote Madrid's bid to stage the summer Olympic Games of 2012.

Domenech, 25, qualified to referee women's FIFA matches on January 1 and is one of a growing number of female referees in soccer around the world.

Many countries now have women on the list of international referees and assistant referees approved by FIFA, the sport's world governing body.

FIFA's women's football committee is pressing for a new system to increase the number of women referees officiating not only at women's matches but also at certain men's matches.

At the Olympics in 2000, there were 16 female match officials, while all officials at the women's world cup in the U.S. in 1999 were women.

And female referees are increasingly taking charge of domestic football matches around the world.

In 1995 Canadian Sonia Denoncourt was added to the FIFA referee list, which by 1997 contained just 56 female referees from 39 countries.

Denoncourt became the first women to officiate in Olympic football, refereeing the German women's 3-2 victory over Japan in a game in 1996 and went on to become the first woman to referee a senior men's game in Brazil a year later.

In the UK in 1991, Wendy Toms was selected as the fourth official for an English Third Division game between Bournemouth and Reading.

She has since gone on to become the only female assistant referee in the Premiership, England's top league.

In 1999, she officiated a Nationwide Conference match between Kidderminster and Nuneaton with two female assistant referees, the first time in the senior professional game that all three officials were women.

She also acted as an assistant referee in the 2000 Worthington Cup final at Wembley and at two matches in the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

In Italy, where there are 1,107 women referees out of a total of 30,818, women will take charge of fourth division matches in the 2002/2003 season.