That’s the beauty in football Brazil’s gift to us, Fernanda Colombo Uliana would like to see every player’s red card sexy referee.

It’s rare for a referee to become an internet sensation for anything other than a game-changing gaffe or falling over but that can’t be said of Fernanda Colombo Uliana. 

The 25-year-old Brazilian assistant referee  has been officiating in Brazil for some time but turned heads while making a step up to the Copa do Brasil as Sao Paulo beat CRB 3-0.

And this Sunday she’ll run the line in her Brazilian top-flight match when Atletico Mineiro (who boast former Barcelona superstar Ronaldinho) take on Cruzeiro.

Fernanada Colombo Uliana is among a host of women to have have recently made their way into male-dominated areas of football and is putting in the hard yards to be recognised for more than her appearance.

Just this week, Portugese manager Helena Costa became the first female boss of a club in one of Europe’s top two leagues when appointed at the helm of Clermont Foot in France. 

Italian official and part-time model Elena Tambini, also 25, is also on the rise in her home nation and she is predicted to officiate in Serie B, Serie A and internationally in the future.

Despite supporting the progression of women into top refereeing roles, Brazilian football hasn’t exactly been a bastion of gender equality of late.

Lower league side Juventus de Santa Catarina’s coach Celso Teixeira found himself in trouble recently for calling assistant referee Maira Americano Labes ‘gostoso’ – which means ‘tasty’ in Portugese – after being sent off during a Catarinense championship game.

Labes said she took no offence as she was concentrating on the game. Teixeira says the comment was made by someone from the crowd. 

On Instagram, Labes said: ‘Beauty should pass unnoticed. I’d like for the day to come for women to be recognised for their work just like men.’

Early Doors has always been suspicious of football referees. Deciding to become one of the men in black has always seemed a peculiarly cruel bargain with the devil: sure, you get to be involved in football at a level that could be far higher than your own skill, and we can kind of understand getting a kick out of blowing the whistle and laying down the law.

But are those minor thrills really worth becoming the sporting equivalent of a traffic warden? Is the uniform and the whistle or flag adequate compensation for the constant barrage of abuse from fans and players, aggression that often borders on physical assault, and guaranteed public humiliation every time you make a mistake? It’s not as if there’s money in it: unless you get to the very highest level, the money on offer equates to little more than petrol expenses.

For a man in early middle age it all might be worth it, of course. But if you were a young, beautiful woman with the world at your feet, would you still give up your weekends to be a match official?

Such tactics have raised awareness of this new wave of female Brazilian officials, however, so much so that Brazilian magazine Hora recently ran an online poll for readers to vote who was the hottest female football official in the game: between Fernanda, Maria or Nadine Câmara Bastos.

Fernanda won the poll, taking over 75 per cent of the vote. Only time will tell whether she’ll win a reputation, whether good or bad, for her football nous – rather than just being known as the “hot blonde one”.

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