On a day where over 46,000 fans attended the Ladies All-Ireland Finals in Croke Park, a game less than 20 kilometres away showed women's sport not on a level-playing field.
UCD Waves were scheduled to play Kilkenny United WFC in the FAI Women's National League, but the game never kicked off due to a lack of match officials in attendance.
Scheduled to begin at 2pm in Jackson Park, both the teams were announced on the Twitter accounts, before UCD announced a delay in the kick-off.
Kick off Delayed here in Jackson Park
— DLRWaves (@DLRWaves) September 24, 2017
That delayed turned out to be because there was no referee in attendance to officiate the match. Twenty minutes later, both teams announced the game would not take place.
A practice match between the sides was played instead, but the fact that no officials were in attendance in not a good look for the Women's National League.
Kilkenny's manager Casey McQuillan said after the game that no referee "allotted" for the match.
No refs allotted for @FAI_WNL game. @KilkennyWFC & @ucdwaves ready to play. Historic weekend for Women's Football? #prdepartmentonstandby
— Casey Mc Quillan (@CaseyMgl) September 24, 2017
The incident comes in the same weekend the first ever FAI Women's Football Convention was taking place. One of the ideas of the event is about "changing the image of women's football".
The FAI have yet to comment on the game not taking place.
