A group of talented girls unexpectedly stormed onto headlines in 2015 and their success, including advancing to the 2017 finals of AFC U-16 Women's Championship, and brilliant performances have continued silently as the Tricotex Women's Football League has failed to attract spectators in the new normal.

They may be dissatisfied playing in front of empty stadia, but another group of women have made history for the country's women's football league by officiating 39 of the 42 matches played till yesterday.

That other group is none other than the match officials, including referees, assistant referees and fourth officials, who have impressed after the Bangladesh Football Federation decided for the first time to appoint only females for all roles barring match commissioner.

"We haven't evaluated their overall performances yet but we are really satisfied. We are thinking of picking some of them for refresher courses early next year and engage them in the lower men's division leagues," BFF Referees' Committee Deputy Chairman Ibrahim Nesar told The Daily Star.

"You know we already have two female FIFA referees -- Joya Chakma and Salma Akter -- and I believe there are some potential referees who also can earn FIFA badges. But they have to need the opportunity to conduct matches regularly either in the women's or men's competition," added the former FIFA referee.

Mahmuda Sharifa Odithi, who coached the champion Bashundhara Kings side this season, saw the decision as a positive but said that referees were of different standards.

"Some of referees are really good but the rest are [too] inexperienced to conduct matches," said Odithi. "I think they lack confidence, preparedness and self-study on this art of taking the right decision at the right moment."

Referee Khadiza Khatun Sima was pleased with the opportunity.

"The women's competition is not held regularly, so we can't gather knowledge. However, we are very happy that women are conducting the women's league on the back of inspiration from the match commissioners, who give us confidence to conduct the match," said Sima, who represented the national women's team in 2014 and senior team in the SAFF Women's Championship in 2016.

Although some girls from physical colleges completed fundamental refereeing courses before 2004, they did not continue. Then some completed referees' course in 2005 under BFF and started officiating matches. Now the number of women's referee is nearly 30.