Welch has officiated in a few of the largest occasions in soccer, together with the Girls’s FA Cup and Champions League finals, in addition to the 2022 Girls’s European Championship, when the Lionesses had been topped champions on dwelling soil.
However Welch says her proudest second was refereeing at Wembley Stadium for the primary time and seeing that turn out to be an everyday function of the ladies’s recreation.
“The Girls’s FA Cup closing had solely simply began being performed there – which is the place it ought to be being performed,” mentioned Welch.
“That was particular. It should all the time go down [as a proud moment] for me. However there are such a lot of. I really feel like I’ve grown in my profession alongside the WSL.
“I used to be there from the beginning so my journey has been part of that progress. We have to sustain with the expansion of the WSL and as referees, be current.”
Referees within the WSL are usually not but full-time and Welch says that may be a dialogue that “will likely be had” with the Girls’s Skilled Leagues Restricted (WPLL).
“That’s one thing I believe will occur sooner or later. The league is full-time now and has been for numerous years,” she added.
“Though the referees are skilled in every part they do, that full-time component continues to be lacking. We could have some conversations and go from there.”
Welch’s determination to step away from refereeing got here as a shock however she admits it was “at the back of her thoughts” for just a few months.
“I had been to Wembley, to the Euros, a World Cup and refereed within the Premier League and I all the time needed to exit on the high of my recreation,” mentioned Welch.
“I assumed it might be good to complete at a significant match and the Olympic Video games was one.
“The position on the PGMOL got here on the proper time which meant I may nonetheless be concerned within the progress of the WSL and Girls’s Championship going ahead.”