Ketaki Khare – First ever foreign Female referee in Sri Lanka

from thepapare.com:

Ketaki Khare made history in Sri Lanka on the 18th of May 2012 when she became the first ever foreign female referee to contest a match in Sri Lanka. Her first match was the u16 encounter between Royal College and St. Joseph’s College.

Ketaki Khare was born in India and is one of India’s brightest female rugby players of the recent past. Ketaki hails from the RFS club located in PUNE. The PUNE club is embedded in history as it is the pioneering women’s rugby club in India and the hclub is also the only team that has a 15 a side women’s rugby team in India.

ThePapare.com was on the spot to talk with Ketaki.

ThePapare : How did you get this chance to come down to Sri Lanka?

Ketaki “Well, I got this chance and opportunity through Mr. Dilroy Fernando. Mr. Dilroy met me at the Asian 5 nations as I was a part of the refereeing body. I was running touch for many of the matches. After talking he offered me this chance to come down to Sri Lanka and referee a few games. I gladly obliged and decided to come down to Sri Lanka.”

Ketaki explained she is in love with rugby and her whole life revolves around it.  “I do nothing besides from rugby. I coach and play rugby and that’s all I do”.

She started at a young age as she joined the RFS team from Pune.  Her performances propelled her to go on to represent the Indian women’s national 7’s side in 2009. However she was unfortunate as she suffered an injury that kept her out of the national side. She later recovered and regained her spot in the sevens side and hasn’t looked back.

Ketaki when asked about Sri Lankan rugby had this to say. “I think when we compare India and Sri Lanka the level of Rugby in Sri Lanka is phenomenal. I mean the crowd is just amazing. We don’t have this back home.”Ketaki also said “I’m actually going to take some pictures of this crowd and show it to my friends back home.” When asked about what it was like to referee the men’s matches she said the boys were very well disciplined and well mannered. She also said refereeing the men’s and women’s matches were quite the same.

What do you think about Sri Lanka as a whole? “Well I love the music over here, You guys play my music! There are three radio stations that play hip hop.” Ketaki also added that she was determined to see the rest of the country

Ketaki concluded by saying “My ambition would be to play for a club and keep on playing for my country and represent my country to the fullest.” Ketaki also added that one day she would like to come back to Sri Lanka with her Pune based side and compete with the SL Army women’s team one day.

ThePapare.com thanks Ketaki for her time and colouring rugby in general and wishes her the very best in her rugby.

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