Salima Mukansanga's name will forever be in the history books of world football as the first ever female referee to officiate at the Africa cup of nations tournament. She arrived in Kigali over the weekend after successfully handling two games in the ongoing 2021 AFCON in Cameroon. The performance of the Salima was applauded by the world as she took total control of the game and did excellently well. Coincidentally, her fantastic output comes around the same time that there has been serious question marks surrounding the output of referees in the Rwandan premier league. Just last week, Gasogi United boss Kakooza Nkuriza Charles, popularly known as KNC threatened to remove his team from the local league after his side scored a goal against Rayon which was disallowed by the referee for a supposed offside. Prior to that, FERWAFA had over the previous months imposed a series of bans on referees for their poor performances in games. For Rwandan football to go forward, the referees play a major role as their integrity is what is required for us to know the true standard of players and the teams. Seemingly, everyone was glad as Mukansanga raised the name and image of Rwanda although the country failed to make it to the tournament. Rwanda has only participated in Afcon once, in 2004. The referees in the local league should aim high and do their work diligently because with the great performance of Mukansanga, the world will be taking a good look at the domestic league in the country if there will be another "e;Mukansanga"e; coming up. Again, with what is circulating on the internet concerning the referee who was in charge of the Rayon vs Gasogi game, it will also alert governing football entities like CAF to thoroughly scrutinize some of the referees before they are given international assignments. For people like Mukansanga and others, they have already written their names in the letters of gold at the big stages and their next target is surely the world cup in Qatar later this year. Those coming up should take a cue from the success story of Mukansanga and deliver well because Rwandan referees are now the cynosure of all eyes across the world.
