Contrast league with a ref banning female (7)
I believe the answer is:
compare
'contrast' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'league with a ref banning female' is the wordplay.
'league with' becomes 'comp' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'banning' suggests deleting specific letters.
'female' becomes 'f' (abbreviation).
'ref' with 'f' taken away is 're'.
'comp'+'a'+'re'='COMPARE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for compare that I've seen before include "Look at differences and similarities between (things)" , "Represent as similar; sounds like emcee" , "Contrast - liken" , "what discriminators do" .)