Three decades ago in her Tegucigalpa neighborhood, other parents questioned Melissa Borjas’ mother for letting her play soccer with the boys.
Her mother had no problem with Melissa spending afternoons after school in kickarounds with eight to 10 boys.
Her father was proud of his soccer-playing daughter, the older sister to three brothers. He started a team so Melissa and the area boys could compete outside their neighborhood in the Honduras capital.
And thus started the soccer career of the first woman to referee in the men’s Liga Nacional Honduras (2019) and the first Honduran to referee at the Women’s World Cup (2015). She also reffed at the 2019 and 2023 Women’s World Cups and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Borja now serves as the Manager of NWSL Referees for PRO, the Professional Referee Organization.
In the role created this year, Borjas manages referees and delivers reports to the NWSL for PRO. She oversees the officiating assignments, including the video assistant referees. Borjas worked in the booth at several men’s Concacaf competitions, including the 2023 men’s Gold Cup.
“In our culture in Honduras, in Central America, they weren’t used to seeing girls and women playing,” Borjas said while recalling her childhood soccer. Besides her parents’ support, she had an uncle who defied the gender expectations of the times and encouraged her.
Carlos Pastrana, Melissa’s mother’s younger brother, officiated Honduran pro soccer and was a FIFA assistant referee. His career included the men’s 2010 World Cup and the 2006 Club World Cup final.
“It was very common for my brothers and my family to watch him on television,” Borjas said. “He also took us to the different fields with him where he was officiating.
“So I always had this contact with refereeing thanks to my uncle. I got to know his colleagues, all the famous referees in the Honduran men’s first division.”
At age 16, Borjas took the referee’s certification course and began at the grassroots, officiating U-8s and U-10s, boys and girls. The pay was just enough to cover her uniform and gear.
When Borjas went to college, she told her uncle she’d take a break from reffing but return to the field after she got her university degree (banking and finance). Her intention was to be an AR like Pastrana. But her referee instructor told her:
“No, no, no, you will be a referee, because your personality, your character is for a referee, not for an assistant referee.”
Her timing was good because the Honduran federation launched an initiative to develop female referees. She worked her way up from pro team’s youth academy games, to reserve leagues, to becoming the first women to whistle in the Liga Nacional Honduras.
“The comments from the spectators, especially women, were comments like, ‘Go clean your house!” Borjas said. “Very offensive. Very sexist.
“I learned how to shut it out, how to protect myself. To create this barrier or bubble, and just be focused on my work on the pitch. Actually, those kinds of comments made me stronger.”
She got more respect from players and coaches. While reffing academy and reserve league games, she believes her age, at 24, 25, was a factor.
“I was older than the players,” she said. “and they were very respectful. And I remember some coaches telling the players, ‘Show respect to her, because she’s here trying to do her best. And I don’t want any comments.’ So the players were very polite and well-behaved.
“The fans were worse. Inside the pitch, I didn’t have any problems with the players, or even with the coaches. But the mothers, oh my God.”
Borjas became the first woman to referee the “Clásico Capitalino” — the Tegucigalpa derby — between Olimpia and Motagua in a regular-season game and in a 2019 final.
“That’s a very hard game even when their youth teams play,” she said. “In one of those youth games, all the crowd came into the pitch and started to fight each other. Because the players saw their parents fighting, it became a collective and massive confrontation.
“Fortunately, that only happened one time for me, and not when I reffed the first division derby games.”
Borjas had become a FIFA referee in 2013 and began officiating women’s national team games. She quickly realized that those matches didn’t require the same amount of sternness. “After officiating all these Honduran men’s games,” she said, “I had to dial down my personality two levels.”
The heavy hand required to keep the men’s games under control to the women came across as a ref in a bad mood. Borjas frequently officiated the U.S. women’s national team and remembers how her first USWNT game enlightened her to a new world of women’s soccer.
“I was really, really impressed,” she said. “My first reaction came when I was warming up and saw the stadium was totally full. And then seeing the high level and all these different personalities.
“I remember Carli Lloyd. … Fortunately, at that time, I was already speaking English. So communication wasn’t a problem. In the first minute, Abby Wambach asked for a foul and I answered in English. And I got the impression that put them at ease.”
Entering international officiating also introduced her to a community of female colleagues.
“First I met the female referees from across Central America and saw that the region was growing up for us,” Borjas said. “When I arrived for my first FIFA tournament, I was surprised how big the community of female referees was and was surprised at the high quality of female referees.
“Because developing female referees was so difficult in my country, I’d had the impression it was also the case in other countries.”
Now she’s managing the referees of a women’s league, the NWSL, that has more teams and higher attendances than the Honduran men’s first division. It’s a position she couldn’t have imagined when she was making refereeing history in her country.
Even reffing in a Women’s World Cup hadn’t entered Borjas’ mind — only men’s games were broadcast on Honduran TV — until she began reffing Concacaf championships.
She recalls the morning she checked her email and opened the one from FIFA assigning her to the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada.
“I immediately start to cry,” she says. “At the time, I was still living with my parents, so I went to my mom and I showed her the email. It was in English, so she didn’t understand. I explained to her what the email said.
“She was also very, very happy.”
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