Howard Webb will reportedly appear in court next week to fight allegations made by a female referee that the PGMOL ruined her career.
Lisa Benn, a 34-year-old official, claimed that she was ‘physically manhandled and threatened’ by former Premier League assistant referee and PGMOL coach Steve Child at a tournament in 2023 arranged to offer female referees VAR experience.
Documents seen by The Telegraph reveal Benn alleged that Child, who officiated more than 300 top-flight games, ‘grabbed her arm and dragged her on the pitch’ moments before the start of a men’s match she was officiating.
But a PGMOL investigation carried out later that year ruled that Child’s alleged behaviour did not warrant disciplinary action.
Though the body found that ‘on the balance of probability’ there was physical contact made between the pair, it fell short of the threshold of being ‘threatening and aggressive’.
Benn now alleges that she was punished for her claim, despite being assured by Webb and his wife Bibi Steinhaus-Webb – then head of women’s referees at PGMOL – that this would not be the case.
PGMOL chief Howard Webb will reportedly appear in court next week to fight allegations that the referees’ governing body ruined the career of a female referee
Lisa Benn, 34, believes her career was affected after she made a complaint that a PGMOL coach ‘physically manhandled and threatened her’
Later in the same year of her original complaint, Benn was not nominated for one of five FIFA places available for English referees which would have allowed her to take charge of international games and UEFA matches. It would also have earned her a £20,000 annual salary from the PGMOL, the same publication reports.
However the refereeing board allegedly submitted a list in which Benn was placed sixth despite being nominated in both of the previous two years.
She later lost the £20,000 PGMOL salary she had previously earned through nominations, leading to her becoming self-employed at the start of 2024 and reliant solely on her match fees.
Benn was allegedly later told by Steinhaus-Webb that she could regain her nomination the following year as part of a more ‘holistic’ approach.
However she was once again overlooked for the FIFA nomination in 2023-24 despite being ranked second on a list of WSL officials.
Since 2023, she has refereed just 15 WSL fixtures – none this season – despite previously being one of the most well-respected officials in the division.
She’s now filed a complaint claiming compensation for unfair dismissal, direct discrimination, harassment, victimisation, wrongful dismissal and unlawful deduction of wages.
The PGMOL reportedly denies all of Benn’s claims.
The allegations stem back to when Webb and his wife Bibi Steinhaus-Webb were both at the top of the PGMOL. She has since moved on to FIFA
Webb and his wife, who married in 2021, have been at the top of refereeing for some 15 years having officiated international and domestic games across the globe before moving into governance with the PGMOL.
The pinnacle of Webb’s career came when he took charge of the World Cup final in 2010, while Steinhaus-Webb officiated the women’s final a year later.
She later bagged the top refereeing role in women’s football at the PGMOL in 2021, spending three years in the job before moving to FIFA, where she’s currently the head of women’s refereeing.
It’s thought that her husband could step over to FIFA as well when its current referees’ committee chairman Pierluigi Collina leaves.
