The head coach of Hong Kong's Happy Valley neighborhood soccer team begged the local football association to "not give us female referees" Monday following the team's defeat Sunday at a match overseen by Gigi Law, the city's only woman referee.
"Everyone can see that Law is not physically strong enough to oversee men's games," Happy Valley coach Pau Ka-yiu said during an interview. He rebuked accusations of sexism, saying that "she simply didn't have the fitness to keep up the whole match."
Happy Valley lost 1-0 to the Tin Shui Wai Pegasus team at a stadium in the New Territories - the team's second consecutive loss and its fifth defeat this season.
Pau's players have not scored in the past 322 minutes of game play, according to soccer blogger Lester Chan. This means the Happy Valley team has not earned a point in more than three and a half games.
Law, who earned her International Federation of Association Football, or FIFA, women's referee qualifications in 2013 and started officiating for the Asian Football Confederation a year later, is the Hong Kong Football Association's first and only female referee.
She refereed her first senior men's soccer match three years ago. She said at the time "it's never going to be easy" as a female official in Hong Kong's top men's league.
Germany's top soccer league "the Bundesliga is going to have its first female referee in the new season and this is going to bolster our intention to have the same thing happen in Hong Kong," Law said in 2017.
As a woman qualified to officiate men's games, Law must keep up the same physical capabilities as the players she referees or else she risks losing her certification.
At the match Sunday, Happy Valley coach Pau took issue with a number of her calls and received a yellow card for dissent - a caution given by referees to players and coaches for "unsporting behavior" resulting in 10 minutes in the sin bin.
But after the game, Pau made his feelings about female referees known. "How many things did she miss? She missed a whole lot," he alleged in an interview with local news media.
