Nelly Viennot is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 football (soccer)

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 referee. An international woman's referee since 1995, Viennot attracted the attention of the wider football community when she was shortlisted, along with eighty-two other elite referees, as a possible assistant referee in the 2006

2006 FIFA World Cup

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...

 World Cup

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...

.

Viennot attended a four-day FIFA

FIFA

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...

 workshop in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, hoping to become one of the sixty referees eventually chosen as assistant referees in the world's largest football tournament. However, she failed a sprint test on the 21 April 2006. She would have been the first ever female referee at a male World Cup; no other referee has come as close to officiating in the tournament.

Viennot's refereeing career began in 1987, and she refereed her first international woman's match on 1 January 1995. Since 2002 she has regularly refereed French football

Football in France

Football is the most popular sport in France. The Fédération Française de Football is the national governing bodyand is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the game of association football in the country, both professional and amateur...

 at the top levels

Ligue 1

Ligue 1 , is the French professional league for association football clubs. It is the country's primary football competition and serves as the top division of the French football league system. Ligue 1 is one of two divisions making up the Ligue de Football Professionnel, the other being Ligue 2....

, and made appearances in the UEFA Champions League

UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...

.

She currently lives in Salouel

Salouël

Salouël is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Geography:The commune is situated southwest of Amiens, between the N29 and D608 roads and a suburb of Amiens.-Population:-History:...

, and cites her non-refereeing occupation as "housewife".