Bibiana Steinhaus has been voted as the Women Referee of the Year for 2017 by the IFFHS.
Steinhaus with 232 points, comfortably defeated her Swiss counterpart Esther Stäubli by 95 points. This was her third FROTY award, having previously won it in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
“Even after the third time of winning it’s obviously still something very special to be voted the best female referee in the world by international experts,” the 38-year-old said. “My team and I are pleased about the award and I hope that this international recognition will motivate lots of young female officials to keep going.”
Steinhaus created history this season when she became the first-ever female referee in Europe’s top-flight football.
In a clean sweep for Germany, Dr. Felix Brych won the Men’s Referee of the Year award. With 178 points, he topped English counterpart Martin Atkinson (73 points) by a massive 105 points.
Brych, who is currently in the UAE for his Club World Cup commitments said: “Honestly, I could hardly believe my luck when I found out this morning. I am so happy to receive this sort of recognition, but this is actually an award for my whole team, so I’d like to say a massive thanks to my long-time assistants Mark Borsch and Stefan Lupp, as well as my goal-line assistants Bastian Dankert and Marco Fritz for their fantastic support, not only in 2017.”
This was Brych’s first-ever MROTY award.
