The FIFA Women's World Cup China 2007 is to kick off tonight in Shanghai, with the task of officiating the 32 games has fallen to a specially trained corps of 14 referees and 22 assistant referees, all are female.

The first of them to show up will be Tammy Ogston, the referee in charge of tonight's curtain-raiser between defending champions Germany and Argentina in Group A.

According to an article from FIFA.com, although the Australian is no stranger to the biggest women's football show on earth, having also participated at USA 1999 and 2003, she is just as excited about her job.

"I can't wait for the game to come around," an excited Ogston told FIFA.com. "I'm very excited and happy they have put their faith in me for the opening game. FIFA's Refereeing Department is doing a great job," she said, "and we are much more professional now. It goes without saying that we are 100 per cent better than were in 1999."

Having been an international referee for ten years, Tammy is the voice of experience among the group of officials and admits, not without a broad smile, that her colleagues often seek her out for advice.

The referees, who arrived in China just over a week ago, will be staying together throughout the competition at their hotel base in Shanghai.

From there they will travel to the various venues for their designated games, before returning to base camp to continue with their specialised training programmes.

As well as fitness training, they will be put through their paces in regular theory sessions and will be reviewing matches to try and identify possible errors and improve their performance levels.

A psychologist will also be on hand to help with their mental preparations ahead of games.

The story from FIFA.com said as the women's game develops, so does female refereeing. The number of women who decide to become officials is increasing every year and FIFA is working hard to improve their preparation.

"Our objective is to make women's refereeing even more professional," said Sonia Denoncourt, the head of women's refereeing at FIFA's Refereeing Department.

"There are more and more female referees and we are in the process of implementing a monitoring and training system."

Over the last two and a half years, match officials have been called together for a series of training camps, and refereeing standards have been regularly monitored at various tournaments around the globe.

"The idea is to divide the programme up into four-year periods between the World Cups," added Denoncourt. "Naturally we have improved since 2003, but we are well aware there is still a long way to go yet."

Source: Xinhua