Two Israeli match officials have been handed a plum European assignment: referee Sapir Berman and assistant referee Nofar Skorka have been appointed by UEFA to work matches in the second qualifying round of the Women's Champions League, ONE reported.
The pair will operate at a four-team mini-tournament being staged in Slovenia, one of several such groups UEFA uses to whittle down the competition's Champions Path before the group stage. The bracket brings together Austria Wien, Hajduk Split, hosts NŠ Mura and Farul Constanța.
Under the format, the four sides split into two semi-finals, with the winners meeting in a final and the losers playing off for third. Only the overall winner advances, into the third qualifying round. According to ONE, the games run between August 5 and August 8.
The Israel Football Referees Association congratulated Berman and Skorka on social media following the appointment, a rare moment in the spotlight for officials rather than players in an Israeli football week usually dominated by transfer and results news.
Berman's rise has already made headlines well beyond Israel. In March 2025 she became the first transgender woman to referee an international match, taking charge of a Women's Under-17 European Championship qualifier between Northern Ireland and Montenegro in Belfast. She has refereed in Israel's men's Premier League for over a decade and holds a UEFA international badge.
Skorka, from Rishon LeZion, brings her own playing background to the assignment. A former forward for Hapoel Ironi Rishon LeZion, Maccabi Holon and Ramat HaSharon in the Israeli women's top flight, she has run the line as an assistant referee in the national league since the 2016/17 season and now carries an international assistant's badge of her own.
For Israeli football, appointments like this have taken on added significance in recent years, with UEFA and FIFA continuing to hand officiating posts to Israeli referees at continental and global tournaments even as the men's national team's own path through Europe remains fraught. Berman and Skorka's assignment in Slovenia is the latest example.
