Cha Sung-mi

Cha Sung-mi (Korean: 차성미, born 23 November 1975) is a South Korean football referee and former footballer and referee who played as a striker for INI Steel and the South Korea national team. Having played for the national team throughout the 1990s, Cha is one of the first generation of women's footballers in South Korea, and is considered as one of the country's greatest ever female strikers.

Early life Cha was born in Seoul, but moved to Osan with her mother and younger brother after her father died when she was two years old. Her mother ran a local restaurant. While attending Osan Girls' Middle School, Cha competed as a javelin thrower, but in her first year of high school a P.E. teacher suggested she try football, and she began playing for the national team less than a year later. She continued playing at Ulsan College.

Club career Cha joined Hyundai Steel (later INI Steel), at the time the only women's works football team in South Korea, in 1996. She was the top scorer in the Women's Korean League in all of her first three years at the club.

A knee injury forced Cha into early retirement, and a retirement ceremony was held for her at the 2003 National Sports Festival. However, after a successful rehabilitation and working as a referee for two years, she returned to playing, joining Chungnam Ilhwa Chunma in 2006. Cha became a core squad member at the newly established club, but struggled with injury and ultimately retired from football at the end of 2006. At the 1999 AFC Women's Championship, she became the first ever Korean player to score two hat-tricks in the same tournament.

Cha played at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, scoring a goal in South Korea's opening match against Vietnam. She was part of the South Korean squad that finished in third at the 2003 AFC Women's Championship, earning the country its first ever appearance at a FIFA Women's World Cup.

She retired from international football in 2003, and later expressed regret that she never had the opportunity to play in the World Cup.

Refereeing career Even during her playing days, Cha had the ambition to become a referee.

Cha won a scholarship to study in the United States for a year to improve her English skills and subsequently scored full marks in the English test during the referee selection process for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. Cha was one of two Korean match officials at the tournament, along with assistant referee Kim Kyoung-min.

Style of play Known from a young age for her goalscoring ability, Cha has been called the 'Korean Mia Hamm' and the 'female Cha Bum-kun'. Ahn Jong-goan, her manager at INI Steel, noted that Cha had excellent basic skills as well as physical strength and footballing intelligence, comparing her to Lee Dong-gook and Sun Wen. Runners-up: 1997, 2001 President's Cup Winners: 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 Runners-up: 2000 Korea Expressway Corporation National Women's Football Tournament Winners: 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Runners-up: 1997, 2002 Korea Women's League Winners: 1998-2, 1999-1, 1999-2, 2003-1 Runners-up: 1998-1, 2000-1, 2001, 2002-1, 2002-2 Unification Cup Winners: 2002, 2003 National Sports Festival Winners: 2001, 2002, 2003

Individual Korean women's football MVP: 1996 Korea Women's League top goalscorer: 1997,1998, 1999