Referee Salima Mukansanga, who is from Rwanda and is currently 34 years old, is one of the 36 officials who have the responsibility of monitoring games as part of the international competition taking place in the Gulf country.
Salima Mukansanga, who was born and raised in the Rusizi District of Rwanda’s South Province, received her nursing and midwifery bachelor’s degree from the University of Gitwe. Mukansanga was raised in the Ruhango District of Rwanda’s South Province, and she was born and raised in the Rusizi District of that province.
Salima Mukansanga ambition was to participate in collegiate basketball, but due to a lack of certain resources, such as basketball courts, she was unable to make that goal a reality. Despite this, she shifted her concentration to football, and during her last year at St. Vincent de Paul Musanze Secondary School, she refereed a game that ended up becoming the championship. It was at this point in time that she began her career as a football referee.
Before starting to work her way up the ladder as an official in the men’s Second Division league and the women’s top-tier league, Mukansanga spent a year learning the fundamentals of refereeing and finishing her studies. During that time, she was also able to complete her apprenticeship.
After working her way up to becoming a referee accredited by the CAF four years later, she was finally able to begin officiating matches across the continent of Africa. After that, she gained a lot of notoriety. All of this, however, took place after she was selected to serve as an assistant referee.
In contrast, she was given the job of center referee for the first time in 2004, and she fulfilled that role during the CAF African Women’s Championship match between Tanzania and Zambia.
After the match between Zambia and Tanzania, Mukansanga was offered the opportunity to take command of international matches. Her first assignment was the All-Africa Games, which were held in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, in 2015.
Salima Mukansanga was the referee for the first round match of this tournament, which was played between Nigeria and Tanzania, as well as the semifinal match, which was played between Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Following the competition, she traveled back to Uganda to serve as a referee for the 2015 Cecafa Women’s Challenge Cup in Jinja.
As her career progressed, Mukansanga was selected to be one of the 47 officials in charge of the Africa Women Cup of Nations tournament that was held in Cameroon in 2016. The competition between Nigeria and Cameroon was under her watchful eye.
As a result of her performance in Cameroon, she was selected to serve as a referee at the Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Uruguay in 2018, and she oversaw the match between Uruguay and New Zealand that was played in Group A. In addition, Mukansanga served in an officiating capacity for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which was held in France.
There will be a total of four female referees working the match in Qatar, including Mukansanga. Their names are Stephanie Frappart from France and Yoshimi Yamashita from Japan. Assisting the referee throughout the match will be Neuza Back, who hails from Brazil; Karen Diaz Medina, who hails from Mexico; and Kathryn Nesbitt, who is from the United States.
Salima Mukansanga display at the 33rd Africa Cup of Nations, which was held in Cameroon at the beginning of January, as well as other Cecafa events held in the area, is a good indicator of how she would perform on the international level.