Bibiana Steinhaus: female referee who stood up to Pep is ready for Bundesliga

In hindsight it wasn’t very funny. In fact it wasn’t very funny at the time, either. Franck Ribéry, while putting the ball on the ground to prepare to take a free‑kick, lent over and undid the referee’s boot laces. It wasn’t a friendly and it wasn’t an exhibition game against an all-star team. This was a German Cup game, a competitive fixture, and as soon as he had performed his little “prank” the debate began: would he have done it if it had been a male referee?

Because this was the biggest game of Bibiana Steinhaus’s refereeing career. She has officiated in the 2. Bundesliga for 10 years but it was the first time she had taken charge of a Bayern Munich game, with all the extra attention that comes with the record German champions. Bayern won the game against Chemnitzer 5-0 last Saturday (they were 3-0 up in the 78th minute when Ribéry undid her laces) but the incident overshadowed the win and Steinhaus’s performance.

And how did the 38-year-old Steinhaus respond? She gave him a playful nudge and moved on. She would have been within her rights to book him for unsporting or even provocative behaviour but she chose to be lenient, which was probably the right decision.

But then her whole career has been full of good decision-making. Steinhaus’s father was a referee and she decided early on she wanted to follow in his footsteps. As a player she represented Bad Lauterberg while also qualifying as a chief inspector in the German police. Then came her refereeing career: she took charge of matches in the women’s Bundesliga and officiated her first men’s game in 1999 as a 20-year-old. She was the first female referee to be a fourth official at a men’s Bundesliga game (in 2007-08) and was in charge of the women’s World Cup final in 2011 and the women’s Champions League final last season.

Even so she did wonder whether that phone call to ask her to be a Bundesliga referee would ever happen. But then it did. “I was pretty speechless,” she said when describing her emotions after Lutz Michael Fröhlich, the head of referees at the German Football Federation (DFB), phoned her to give her the news that she would be a Bundesliga referee for the 2017-18 season, which started on Friday. “I felt disbelief, joy, happiness, relief, curiosity – it was simply a rollercoaster ride of emotions," said Steinhaus.

“It has always been my dream to be a Bundesliga referee. That this dream will come true fills me with joy. On one hand it is confirmation of my hard work, and on the other hand it is a great incentive to continue to work hard.”

The news was met by universal praise and encouragement. The Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gündogan took to Twitter and used his 140 characters eloquently: “A new chapter always needs someone who has the courage to write it. You have my respect Frau Steinhaus #Steinhaus! #Bundesliga.”

The DFB president, Reinhard Grindel, said: “I have been following her career for several years and I am very happy for her. Compliments to the refereeing body whose decision shows that if you work hard and your performances are good enough it doesn’t matter which sex you are. I hope this will be an incentive for a lot of young girls in our country to emulate her.”

Steinhaus, who does not have a game this weekend, is used to controversy. Most of the time she has been treated with the respect she deserves by the male players but when something has happened, it has forced her into the spotlight simply because she is a woman. In October 2010 she was in the headlines because a Hertha Berlin player, Peter Niemeyer, accidentally touched her breast. He had meant to give her a pat on the shoulder and simply missed. The German papers, and especially the tabloids, made the most of it.

In February 2015 Steinhaus was in the news again after the Fortuna Düsseldorf midfielder Kerem Demirbay made sexist remarks – “Women don’t belong in the men’s game” – to her after being shown a second yellow card.

Demirbay, who later phoned Steinhaus to apologise, was suspended for five games and told to referee a junior girls' game. Steinhaus was not impressed. “How can refereeing a game be a punishment? What kind of message do those pictures send out? Anyone can be in charge of a game. Without equipment, without a degree. That’s what makes our job so great.”

In October 2014, as Bayern drew 0-0 with Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Bayern manager, Pep Guardiola, walked over to Steinhaus, who was acting as a fourth official, and put his arm round her shoulder in a somewhat condescending way and gesticulated wildly towards the pitch.

Steinhaus expertly pushed his arm off in one swift movement and started to move away while keeping fully focused on the game. It was brilliant in a “I-don’t-care-who-you-are-don’t-put-your-arm-round-me” way.

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung in May Steinhaus admitted she had been taken by surprise by the worldwide interest in her promotion to the Bundesliga. “It was like a huge thunderstorm. Violent. I never got into refereeing in order to fight gender inequality but despite that I have to deal with it because there are people around me for whom this matters.”

Then she added: “As for me I just do what I love doing and that is to referee football games.”