In the year’s first edition of Behind the Whistle, Football Queensland spoke with two Queensland FIFA referees, Casey Reibelt and Chris Beath, on their journey from officiating at a national level to achieving their international appointments.
In an exciting career highlight, they were both appointed earlier this month as officials for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™.
This follows Beath’s appointment last year as a referee for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ and Reibelt as a video assistant referee for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup India 2022™.
Reibelt attributes her start as a match official to the two-year Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Project Future development program where she attended seminars in Malaysia, learning the technical and physical aspects of becoming a referee.
“That really set me up quite well to know what the expectations were with fitness, with knowledge and what it was like to travel internationally to do games,” Reibelt said.
Chris Beath rose through the ranks in the Queensland system, through state and national titles in the domestic stage before a gradual introduction to international appointments which paved the pathway to working with the AFC.
“It certainly wasn’t overnight and if I look back it was a 20+ year journey to get there,” Beath said.
Although coming from two different pathways, both Reibelt and Beath had the same to say about their first international appointment.
“Denmark and Sweden was my first game as a FIFA referee, and what really took me by surprise was how fast the game was; it was super-fast and technical,” Reibelt said
“The speed they move the ball, the speed of their counter attacks, how quickly the ball can move from one end of the field to the other and then back down the other end,” Beath said
“It involves a lot of additional parts of preparation, in terms of reading the game and understanding football at a deeper level, which then we can use to officiate the game at a higher level.”
Having refereed at various international tournaments, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019™, both Reibelt and Beath agree that the support systems they have each built play just as much of a key role in their pre-game preparation as their physical training.
“The mental component, that’s living and breathing football; knowing we could go over there and officiate almost any team, we really want to be prepared across the different styles, and trends, and key players before we get there so that there’s one last thing we need to worry about,” Beath said.
“Support systems are absolutely integral to what we do. It’s a career path that has huge highs and lows, similar to a player, so it’s so right to have the right support team around us.”
“It can be difficult managing everything, my other work, refereeing and life,” Reibelt said.
“We have a mental health officer at the moment who is helping us manage our time and calendars, making sure we’re scheduling rests and taking care of our health.
“It always helps to have someone to talk to, especially when you make mistakes in games, it can help to have lots of support.”
With the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™, excitement is high amongst the Queensland referees.
“It’s always nice to officiate big tournaments but there’s something extra special about having it on home soil,” Beath said.
“Everyone I talk to is excited about it, I’m looking forwards to having the opportunity to have friends and family coming to see the games live. Having it right here on our doorstep is making it much more accessible to people,” Reibelt said.
“I’m also excited to see an increase in people maybe wanting to be a FIFA referee or being inspired to go to the world cup themselves one day; It’s this sort of event that can really motivate young people and show them what’s possible.”
Both Beath and Reibelt are excited to see where the next generation of officials will take the game, offering some words of advice to aspiring Queensland referees.
“Two things are really important: persistence and resilience,” Reibelt said.
“The ability to bounce back from things that might have gone wrong, that resilience around if you’ve made a mistake on the field being able to accept it and take responsibility and grow from it.”
“Definitely jump in and give it a go, it’s a very interesting and rewarding career path that’s taken me all over the world to 30 + countries, I get to have the best seat in the house so I would definitely suggest giving it a go and giving it everything you’ve got,” Beath said.
