Bouchra Karboubi: Referee against all odds

One day, when Bouchra Karboubi was 14, her brothers tore up her linesman's flag. They did not want their sister to bring "hchouma" – or "shame" – on the family. About 23 years later, Karboubi is one of Morocco's most famous women – at least for anyone who has a passing interest in football. The 36-year-old is one of five female officials at the 34th edition of the men's Africa Cup of Nations.

"I'm really proud," Karboubi tells DW.

"This assignment is a dream come true for me. When I started refereeing many years ago, I never dreamed this would happen. But I worked hard for it. And today I'm standing here. It's simply wonderful."

Fraternal resistance

Karboubi grew up with her four brothers in Taza, a large, conservative city in northeastern Morocco, where at the time it was generally considered shameful for a girl to wear shorts and stand on the same pitch with men. That's why her brothers were dead set against their sister's passion for football. They also objected when Bouchra showed an interest in the refereeing school that had just opened in Taza in 2001.

"But I said to myself: I love football – why shouldn't I give it a try? Even against my brothers' wishes," she says.

This was followed by the torn-flag incident. After that happened, she simply grabbed a needle and thread and stitched the flag back up – before running the line in her next match. Bouchra was on her way, and even then, it seemed that her career as an official was pretty much unstoppable.

Climbing the ladder

In 2007, she went to Meknes, a north-central Moroccan city, to study business administration. By then, parallel to her studies, Karboubi was already refereeing first and second division matches in the country's women's league. In 2014, she passed the fitness test required by the Royal Moroccan Football Federation to referee men's matches. She began by officiating lower-level men's games, before going on to be nominated for international matches on the African continent in 2016.

Karboubi gained her first major international experience by refereeing a match at the Women's Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana in 2018. Two years later, Krarboubi, who by then had joined the police force, was allowed to referee a match between Maghreb de Tetouan and Olympique de Kourighba, her first in the top Moroccan men's league.

Two years later, she became the first woman to referee the Moroccan men's cup final. The 3-0 victory of Al Fars over Atletico de Tetouan was almost an aside in the media reports about the game, with all of the focus on this breakthrough by a female referee in men's football.

Chief among five female officials

Since then, Karboubi has been seen as something of a symbol for the progress of women's rights in the Arab world.

She is the only female referee at 2023 men's African Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast. However, she is joined by four assistant referees: Salima Mukansanga of Rwanda, South Africa's Akhona Makalima, Bivet Maria Cinquela of Mauritius and Diana Chikotesha of Zambia.

Dreaming of a men's World Cup

Karboubi in particular has naturally been a focus of media interest.

"It went well," was her own assessment of her AFCON debut in the match between Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau in the preliminary round. She got through the game without any major incidents and remained inconspicuous as a referee.

"A good sign," she says.

However, AFCON is far from the ultimate goal for the Moroccan referee, who also officiated at the 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

"To referee a match at the men's World Cup one day – that's my ultimate goal," she says.

It seems a safe assumption that if and when that happens, her brothers will no longer have any objections.

This article was adapted from German.