Consider these three incidents: the Chelsea midfielder Drew Spence cynically scything down Arsenal’s Kim Little, breaking one of Little’s legs, but picking up only a yellow card; David McNamara’s rock, paper, scissors debacle; and Phil Neville questioning two penalty shouts and a disallowed goal against Australia.

This season the standard of refereeing in the women’s game has been under the microscope. Except now, with a fully professional top division and more televised coverage than ever, there are a lot more eyes peering through that microscope.

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Criticism that refereeing has failed to keep pace with the development of the game is fair, says the Football Association’s head of women’s refereeing, Jo Stimpson. “We’ll never sit here and say we’ve done well enough in the past. We haven’t moved quickly enough.”

That will involve a number of things, including having women’s football embedded in every bit of development and education that referees receive; the elite group, which operates in the Women’s Super League, having two camps a year of bespoke training around the women’s game; and, because there is a bottleneck of female referees who struggle with the fitness tests to move past levels four and five and into the Football League in the men’s game, the creation of a pathway for female referees into the women’s game with fitness tests specific to it.

That doesn’t mean female referees won’t be encouraged to progress in the men’s game. The biggest barrier to passing fitness tests rests on the lack of full-time professionalism. With that option some time away, a fast-tracked pathway to the top of the women’s game ensures women don’t get trapped by fitness requirements that don’t need to be as stringent.

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“Sian Massey-Ellis was always an assistant referee that struggled with fitness,” says Stimpson. “She would always come into the season late because she had not passed her fitness test, but since she’s been a part of the Select Group [operating in the Premier League and the Championship] and has been full-time she has smashed that fitness test first time every summer comfortably. That’s just evidence that being full-time in your profession makes a difference.

“The sooner we can have a full-time group of referees in the Women’s Super League the better.”

The Professional Game Strategy being worked on by Kelly Simmons, the FA’s director of the professional women’s game, will run until 2025 and Stimpson is hopeful that professional referees will be part of that plan. “I’d like to see it as soon as possible but we want to make sure we do it right,” she says. “The Select Group in the men’s game is funded by three sources: the FA, the EFL and the Premier League. So if we’re looking at professional referees in the women’s game we have to look at where the funding will come from.”

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For Rebecca Welch, England’s highest-ranked female referee, who works a 30-hour week in the NHS and officiates in the WSL and National League, the new demands of professionalism are being met by referees. “The scrutiny is going to go up with it being a professional league – that’s standard,” she says. “But the results we’re getting from the Super League, the clubs’ marks and the session marks [clubs and officials score a referee’s performance in every game], they’re on the up.”

They may not be full-time but professional standards have increased. “We get all our footage from the games and have the opportunity to watch that back,” says Welch. “I’ve got access to a coach, specifically for the women’s game.”

For the first time, the FA is analysing what makes refereeing in women’s football different. “Every WSL referee has a match observer that analyses every decision,” Stimpson says. “We look for trends, persistent problems and we devise our training around that.”

But change takes time. “When you have reckless challenge in the men’s game you’ve got 10 guys all over you telling you that was reckless,” she says. “In the women’s game the girls get the ball down, get on and play; they’re not appealing for it.

“Where in our education to referees for so many years we’ve said: ‘Think of your trigger points, think of the things you’re going to use in that identification process,’ one of those is player reaction.

“We’re asking referees to change their thought processes game to game, men’s to women’s, and that can be really hard and can take time.”

Especially if you are part-time. Welch has cut her hours at work to help cope. “There are different sessions: high-intensity sessions, sprint sessions, strength sessions. Over seven days a week you’ve got to do six different sessions, so unless you double up you’ve got to work out every day to maintain the fitness levels.”

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Getting that balance is the biggest challenge. “We have four referees in the women’s game who only do women’s football; all the others do the men’s game too,” Stimpson says. “Most have jobs, most have families.”

Showing the realities faced by amateur or part-time referees helps sow understanding, but Stimpson is mindful of dwelling on their status too much: “There’s a perception of them not being good enough. We don’t want to shout and scream about the fact that they’re part-time because perception in refereeing is so big. The reality is that we’ve got very good referees.”

For Welch, an understanding of how much wrong decisions affect them is more important. “When I get something wrong it hurts me just as much as it hurts the manager and the players. Criticism of decisions, as long as it’s done in the right way, I’m a big fan of. Imagine no reaction. Football wouldn’t be the same.

“But you’ve got to put your shoulders back, look confident and not show it’s getting to you because, effectively, you’re on your own out there.”

Talking points

• Phil Neville has named a strong, experienced squad for the She Believes Cup in the US. Significant omissions include Chioma Ubogagu, Mel Lawley and Fara Williams. Jade Moore is also omitted but Neville says that is to work on her fitness following injury. Rehabilitation from injury also explains the exclusion of Chelsea’s defender Millie Bright, who can expect to be on the plane to France in June.

• Durham have been rewarded with the visit of holders Chelsea in the FA Cup quarter-finals after their 2-0 win over WSL side Bristol City provided the biggest cup-set of the fifth. Manchester City face Liverpool, Manchester United visit Reading and Aston Villa welcome West Ham.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Julie Biesmans of Bristol City, right, and Emily Roberts of Durham compete for the ball during their FA Cup match. Photograph: Alex Davidson/Getty Images

• London Bees have announced former England international Rachel Yankey as head coach after Luke Swindlehurst moved to take charge of Barnet academy’s under-18s.

• The Australian football federation has confirmed Ante Milicic will lead the Matildas into the Women’s World Cup following the sacking of Alen Stajcic.