Sanaa Darawsha is recalling the most violent experience of her life, the moment in 2013 when she had to break up a fight involving three footballers and, in the process, took a stray elbow flush in the mouth. “It broke my teeth,” she says. “I had them fixed … but I want to fix them more.”

Darawsha taps the teeth in question and laughs for the first time on a bitterly cold afternoon at De Montfort University in Leicester. It is as if she is finally able to relax, having spoken for an hour about everything she has been through. It is serious stuff and, as such, no surprise that up to that point she too has been serious in tone and manner.

Aged only 20, Darawsha became Israel’s highest-ranking female Arab referee, a remarkable achievement that required her to overcome adversity, abuse and family objections. Some would have cracked but instead Darawsha survived and thrived, and now aged 28 she wants to help other women in Israel achieve their dreams. Hence her presence at De Montfort to study a Fifa masters international MA in management, law and humanities of sport.

“If you are a woman in Israel you are made to feel sport is not for you,” Darawsha says. “I want to create the infrastructure needed for women to play a good standard of sport in the country and also come up with a strategy that increases the number of women’s sport teams. There are some in Israel but very few, in football especially.

“I am doing this course so I can learn what is happening outside of Israel and understand better why we lack management and leadership in sport, especially for women.”

One of seven siblings, Darawsha was born in Arraba, a largely agricultural city in Israel’s northern district. Her childhood was happy but also typical of most Arabs growing up in the country. The community is small – approximately 21% of the population – and largely restricted to specific areas where resources are limited. As Darawsha puts it, to be an Arab in Israel is to feel like a “type-B person”.

“I don’t think many people outside of Israel even know we exist,” she adds. “When I came to Leicester people said to me: ‘How is it to be Jewish and Muslim?’ I had to tell them: ‘I am an Arab Muslim living in Israel.’”

Darawsha could have developed an inferiority complex but instead decided she was going to make something of her life, and that football would be central to it. At 16 she took up coaching before moving into refereeing so she could remain involved in the sport while travelling across Israel in order to further her studies.

Israeli football has a tradition of female referees and there were a few of Arab origin working in the lower echelons of the country’s five-tier league structure when Darawsha decided to give it a go herself. She underwent the Israel Football Federation’s referees’ course in 2010 and, having completed that, was assigned her first 11-a-side game in January 2011, which was between two Jewish teams from the country’s Noar League, which is for men aged between 18 and 20. It went fine, which could not be said about the next Noar League match Darawsha took charge of. Somewhat paradoxically, that was because it involved two Arab sides.

“In our society it is not acceptable for women to be referees,” she explains. “I was new to these men and all the time they were screaming: ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘You should not be here!’ ‘Your decisions are wrong!’ They gave me the feeling I should not be a referee.”

The experience was scarring for someone who was only a teenager at the time and it required the intervention of a family friend and fellow referee to prevent Darawsha giving up altogether. “He watched me referee and saw that all I needed was to be stronger on the pitch. He said: ‘If you make a mistake, don’t worry – keep going. Believe you are the queen of the game.’”

The pep talk worked and it was not long before Darawsha was officiating games in Liga Gimel, Israel’s fifth tier. Then in March 2012 came her promotion to Liga Bet, the fourth tier, and what was a genuine history-making moment. “Arab women had never run games in Liga Bet – I was the first,” Darawsha says. “Suddenly journalists wanted to talk to me. I had never experienced anything like this.”

Sanaa Darawsha officiates a Liga Bet game between Hapoel Shefa-’Amr and Akko in September 2012. Photograph: Supplied by Sanaa Darawsha

Darawsha was soon officiating in Liga Alef, Israel’s third tier. That was testament not only to her talent but also her resolve, which by then had been strengthened by having to cope with further resistance to her becoming a referee from her elder brother, Fadi. “He knew how footballers spoke to referees, that it could be very aggressive, and felt I couldn’t deal with that,” Darawsha recalls with a notable level of sadness. “He told me he disapproved of me becoming a referee and when I then told him that I was going to do it anyway he stopped talking to me for an entire year.

“It was hard because we are a close family. We sit next to each other during meals and talk all the time, and suddenly that stopped with my brother. He wouldn’t talk to me and he would leave the table if I sat there. It felt as if I had lost him.”

Fadi also objected to his sister having to wear shorts as part of her referee’s uniform. “This is not acceptable for Muslim women and for my brother it was not acceptable for me to wear them in front of 22 men,” says Darawsha, who tried to solve this problem by asking the federation’s referees department if she could wear leggings when officiating. The request was denied.

Fadi eventually accepted Darawsha’s decision to be a referee, as did her parents, Omar and Nura, after some initial reluctance. Yet all of them could have been forgiven for changing their minds after what happened to Darawsha when she took charge of the Liga Bet derby between Tamra and Kabul in December 2012. The score was 2-1 to Kabul when Darawsha ruled out a last-minute equaliser for Tamra after seeing her assistant raise his flag for offside. Cue bedlam.

“Some of the Tamra players tried to attack my assistant,” she recalls. “I showed a red card and five yellow cards to the players involved. I also sent off one of Tamra’s coaches because he was screaming at me and my assistant.

“After the final whistle the Tamra players were still angry and two security men had to escort me to the referee’s room because they wouldn’t leave me alone. They followed me there and tried to get in. Fortunately there were police at the game – because it was a derby – and they stopped them.”

Then came the game that required Darawsha to undergo unexpected dental surgery. It was between Hapoel Iksal and Hapoel Isfiya in Liga Bet and had been proceeding as normal until Isfiya’s goalkeeper got into a furious argument with two Iksal players, who happened to be brothers. It was one of the brothers whose elbow caught Darawsha’s teeth. “The game was live on TV so my family saw it happen,” she says. “They were not happy.”

By then Darawsha was having doubts herself about continuing as a referee, partly because of what had happened in the Tamra-Kabul game and partly because of the off‑the‑field stress her decision to officiate had caused. But again there was a determination not to give up and, in the end, she went on to referee more than 100 games. And while she never did so in Israel’s top two divisions – Liga Leumit and the Premier League – Darawsha had made her mark. There are now 10 female Arab referees in Israel, the most there has ever been, with many in contact with her for support and advice.

That is some legacy but for Darawsha it is not enough. She wants to do more after completing her one-year course in September – which also includes placements in Italy and Switzerland – and despite her reserved, softly spoken nature there is a clear inner drive to succeed, which Darawsha believes comes from her experiences as a referee.

“Before I refereed I was quiet and shy but now I am confident and prepared to say what I want and do what I want,” she says. “What I want is to empower women, because when you empower women they empower their daughters, who then do the same with their daughters. That’s my ambition – to have an effect that lasts through the generations.”