{"id":606299,"date":"2021-12-29T13:51:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T18:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=606299"},"modified":"2021-12-29T13:51:59","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T18:51:59","slug":"rebecca-welch-to-officiate-fa-cup-third-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/12\/29\/rebecca-welch-to-officiate-fa-cup-third-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Welch to Officiate Men\u2019s FA Cup Third Round Tie at St. Andrew&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Becoming the first female to do so, it confirmed referee Rebecca Welch to officiate the men\u2019s third-round FA Cup tie between <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/11\/05\/birmingham-city-adam-claytons-contract\/\" target=\"_self\">Birmingham City<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/12\/15\/plymouth-argyle-ryan-lowe-departure\/\" target=\"_self\">Plymouth Argyle.<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Rebecca Welch to Officiate FA Cup Third Round Tie<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Rebecca Welch is set to make history as the first female referee to take charge of an <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EmiratesFACup?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@EmiratesFACup<\/a> 3rd round match.<\/p>\n<p>Rebecca will be in the middle for the tie between Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle on Saturday 8th January 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations, Rebecca! \ud83d\udc4f <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Aspire2Ref?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Aspire2Ref<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PGMOL (@FA_PGMOL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FA_PGMOL\/status\/1476181650321121284?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 29, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Breaking Boundaries<\/h3>\n<p>Welch has already been breaking boundaries as a female official in the men\u2019s game when she became the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/30\/rebecca-welch-referee-harrogate-port-vale\/\" target=\"_self\">first woman to officiate in the English Football League<\/a> this year. The FA Cup is the world\u2019s oldest national football tournament and the third round is when the Championship and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/12\/29\/premier-league-grades-the-top-half\/\" target=\"_self\">Premier League<\/a> teams enter the competition. Even though it is actually the third round of the FA Cup, it has for years often been referred to as the \u2018First Round Proper\u2019 being seen as the time when the competition really begins. The FA Cup in England was first played in 1871.<\/p>\n<p>The game that Welch took charge of in the EFL was in April 2021 when Port Vale took on Harrogate Town in League Two. Welch is no stranger to the earlier rounds of the FA Cup having already taken charge of Barrow\u2019s 4-0 victory over Banbury in the first round of the tournament.<\/p>\n<h3>Who is Rebecca Welch<\/h3>\n<p>Welch hails from Washington in Tyne and Wear and is now one of several female officials working in the men&#8217;s game including Premier League assistant Sian Massey-Ellis.<\/p>\n<p>Welch has taken charge of a number of high-profile women\u2019s internationals as well as the 2017 and 2020 finals of the women\u2019s FA Cup and continues to trailblaze the path for women officials in men&#8217;s football.<\/p>\n<p>The tie between Birmingham and Plymouth will take place on January 8, 2022, along with the other 31 games to take place between the 7th and 10th of January 2022.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"UyhGP-L4R3RKPie7syMhbA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1344465707\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'UyhGP-L4R3RKPie7syMhbA',sig:'YvZcM42zk1qTu58F0hKNmqsNZU-onDMZbA3UtbWpfAs=',w:'594px',h:'383px',items:'1344465707',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Becoming the first female to do so, it confirmed referee Rebecca Welch to officiate the men\u2019s third-round FA Cup tie between Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle. Rebecca Welch to Officiate FA Cup Third Round Tie Rebecca Welch is set to make history as the first female referee to take charge of an @EmiratesFACup 3rd round [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2488,"featured_media":606320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8432,30],"tags":[3215,8499,3050],"class_list":["post-606299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fa-cup","category-news","tag-fa-cup-third-round","tag-rebecca-welch","tag-referees"],"modified_by":"Jordan Hackett, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}