LAGOS, NIGERIA – Diana Asak, 32, a player-turned-coach, was 7 when she developed an interest in football, or soccer. She says she felt thrilled as she watched the players chase the football.
“I’d been seeing boys playing,” she says. “I thought, ‘This is something that I can do.’”
She started to play with them on the streets of Lagos, a port city in southwestern Nigeria.
“I was the only girl playing, yet I competed with them very well,” she says, tilting her head and resting her middle finger on it as she reminisces.
She says that eventually her day wasn’t complete without football, although her mother disapproved.
“She felt it would affect my academics,” Asak says.
She says her mother wasn’t the only parent with concerns.
“For most parents, seeing a female child kicking football is strange,” she says. “She has to be in the kitchen. They say that it is dropouts that play football. They say that as a girl footballer, you won’t give birth. You will look masculine.”
But she says she didn’t let her mother’s concerns – or being the only girl on the team – deter her.
“I was just a child, and I didn’t see myself as different from the boys,” she says. “We were all human beings. As far as anyone could do it, I believed that I should be able to try it out.”
Asak is now the coach of a women’s team in Lagos and a men’s team for University of Lagos postgraduate students. She is also pursuing her doctorate in sports psychology.
“That was the point that I proved to my parents – that I could play football and still be a success in school,” she says. “I had to fight for my desire to play football.”
Female athletes in Nigeria say they face challenges from society because of their gender at every level of sports. Although the women’s national football team, which plays it first game of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Sunday, has had greater success than the men’s team, coaches and athletes say it receives less support. Some chalk it up to advertising, arguing that there’s greater interest and profits in men’s sports. More and more male coaches here are advocating for women’s sports, though, citing both commitment and talent among the players. More than ever, women are taking advantage of new athletic opportunities. Nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, the football federation here and the government have pledged to help increase visibility and support of women’s leagues.
Social concepts of masculinity, femininity and gender roles extend to sports in Nigeria. It is widely considered unfeminine for women to play sports, while men who don’t play are called sissies.
Yet the United Nations recognize that sports have a myriad of physical and social benefits for women, according to a 2007 report. Women’s participation in sports can also contribute significantly to public life and community development. In Nigeria in particular, the popularity of sports means that its teams’ success or failure at international competitions affects Nigerians’ health, psyches and activities, according to a 2010 U.N. report.
“Sport is therefore as important to Nigerians as the basic necessities of life, like food, clothing and shelter,” according to the U.N. report. “Consequently, sport has become an important aspect of the Nigerian culture due to its popularity amongst the citizenry.”
On a recent Friday in June, boys trained on a football field at J. Nissi Children School in Lagos. Ashade Oluropo, the supervising teacher, says there are no girls playing because they are preparing for a chess match. He says most girls seem to prefer less physical sports, such as tennis.
“Every boy wants to play football,” Oluropo says. “Roughly five out of 50 girls will show interest in football. They prefer running around, playing hide-and-seek and hand games.”
He says that the staff encourages the girls that do show interest in the game. He says one girl, Chioma Nbafulu, 10, plays even better than some of the boys. But he says that her mom wants her to stop.
“Today, she told me that her mum said she should stop playing football,” he says. “I told her that I will see her mum. If their parents discourage them, they stop.”
Mobolaji Akiode, a former basketball player and founder and executive director of Hope4Girls, an NGO that organizes programs to encourage young female basketball players, says female athletes continue to face adversity as they grow up. She says the challenges are emotional, financial and social.
“Most of us cannot live off the money we earn,” she says. “You find yourself different from the average woman in society, even outcasted [sic] by other women.”
She says men can also have longer careers than women, who are expected to give birth and have a family.
“Mother Nature calls for women way before men,” she says. “Being able to play the sport you love as long as you can is a challenge. In society, you still need to think about children.”
But she says it’s possible, though not easy, to be both a mother and an athlete.
“Many women today have found a way to balance both, but [it’s] still a challenge,” she says.
Another stereotype is that sports are too physical for women. She says it shocks people when she tells them she likes to box, but that she doesn’t let it deter her.
“Games are physical, but it helps us develop a sense of strength that many girls need for social development,” Akiode says. “It is good aggression. Physical sport is where I got my inner strength and outer confidence. Let us look beyond the obvious and see how it impacts us in more diverse ways.”
Women say discrimination continues at the professional level – despite greater success by the women’s national football team than the men’s national team here.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup starts Sunday, June 26, with Nigeria facing France in the first round. Nigeria’s women’s team, the Super Falcons, are one of only seven nations to qualify for every cup since it was established in 1991, according to FIFA’s website. They have also won every African Women’s Championship but one.
Yet compared with the Nigerian men’s team, the Super Eagles, which hasn’t won the Africa Cup of Nations since 1994 but has had numerous second- and third-place finishes in recent years, there is a wide gap in organization, pay, benefits and media coverage, says Aisha Falode, a top female sports journalist, referencing a report on gender equality she wrote this year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a German foundation that operates programs for sustainability, women’s rights and good governance in Nigeria.
“When the Super Eagles won the Nations Cup in 1994 a national holiday was declared, houses and cars were given to players and officials,” Falode writes in the report. “In 2004, in Tunisia, the Eagles bronze became ’golden‘ yet the Falcons are perennial African Women Champions (AWC), there has been no corresponding reward. The pledge made by the President after the last win remains unfulfilled.”
Danlami Alanana, head of the women’s unit in the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, the governing football body here, says the government has released cash donations to the National Sports Commission for the women.
Falode says the male Nigerian league is also better organized than the female league, citing the lack of a championship game to cap the women’s 2010 season after nine playoff games. Asak agrees.
“The Super Falcons have done so well compared to the male[s], even when one looks at the short time that the female game started,” Asak says “When it comes to remuneration, allowances, match bonuses, salary and welfare packages, you can’t compare it at all. When the boys are losing, they pay them match bonuses. The girls, they win matches, their money is not up to what they pay when the boys lose.”
It is a similar story with the compensation of female coaches and sign-on fees, according to Falode’s report.
“Female football in Nigeria is no different from what it’s like in other parts of the world,” Alanana says. “It is worse being an African country, but we are trying our best. Most people have gone against culture to accept female football.”
Female athletes say current efforts aren’t enough.
“On the local level, many clubs do not respect contracts, verbal or written,” Asak says. “They literally exploit the girls’ genuine interest in the game. It is important that there is sincere commitment to the female game. This interest should be backed by appropriate packages.”
Asak says that, otherwise, women will be discouraged from playing their best.
“If the player has a deal with the manager and is not paid, the person won’t be happy to give their best,” Asak says. “They are not encouraging the girls. The only thing keeping female football is the love for the game.”
Toyin Ajao, a feminist and football fan, says this passion is what draws her to the sport.
“The togetherness spirit in football makes me watch,” Ajao says. “Have you seen the Super Falcons in action? Have you seen other international female football teams, the way they dribble and deliver the balls? What more evidence does anyone need to see that both female and male can do this sport?”
She says women can even be better.
“There are lots of men out there that are not as strong as these female team members,” Ajao says.
Alanana says the biggest challenge facing women’s sports is low publicity, which stems from low national interest.
“Many people are not interested in female football,” Alanana says. “As such, they do not follow up. There are usually matches, but people are not interested in covering them.”
Odili Ujubuonu, who works in the advertising industry, says sports make money through advertising, and viewers prefer to watch men.
“Sponsorship is the number one thing in sports,” Ujubuonu says. “Female matches do not draw as much [of a] crowd as male matches.”
Ujubuonu says that the majority of fans who attend matches at stadiums or watch them on TV are male.
“A quarter of men who watch the Super Eagles would start getting interested if it’s the female team playing,” he says. “This is even when it gets to the quarterfinals. This is also a key reason why more attention is paid to the male matches.”
Akiode says that if advertisers show more interest in the game, they will begin to see more opportunities to generate money.
“There are gender biases in every sport,” Akiode says. “It’s the nature of it. Sports are predominantly [run] by men and watched by men and financed by men. That won’t change anytime soon, so we just have to make sure the opportunities we have we seize it.”
Asak says that the media should also pay more attention to women’s sports.
“My radio is always tuned to the Brilla FM, a solely sports station,” Asak says. “Sometimes, when our girls are playing, they only announce the score sheets. When the men are playing, they will run the commentary. If they talk more about female football, people will know that something is happening.”
Ajao says women should challenge the media to find out why coverage of women’s sports has been low.
“Are they getting better incentives to promote male football?” she asks. “Are individual beliefs influencing their coverage? We need to interrogate all these.”
Uche Nwachukwu, a male coach of Kelly Football Club in Lagos, says women deserve more attention because they have shown commitment to and talent for the game.
“When you invite the males for training after call-ups, many of them feel too big,” he says of their egos. “They get to camp days before the game. But look at the females – before anything, the camp is full.”
He says women’s skills are also on par with men’s.
“There is no difference between the way girls play and the way boys play,” Nwachukwu says. “Same game. Same rules. Girls can run as fast as the boys. They can score as many goals.”
He says the inequality starts in the organizational structures. He says the NFF has no official female department and that many of its members are male.
“The problem is in the organization from the top with the World Football Organization and our own Nigerian Football Federation here in Nigeria,” he says. “They focus on the male football than the female.”
Alanana says the NFF supports both the men’s and women’s leagues.
But the culture is slowly changing, as female athletes keep pushing forward.
Super Falcons coach Uche Eucharia is the first female coach in Nigerian football history. She led the team to win its sixth Africa Women’s Championship title last year. Her players also won awards for best goalkeeper, highest goal scorer and best player.
“Since female football is performing now, gradually people will become interested,” Alanana says.
The local Nigeria office of the Goethe Institut, a German cultural organization, has organized a public viewing of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and a female football exhibition after the cup ends on July 17.
“Pradah,” a film about Nigerian women in football, premieres this month.
Asak and Falode were also selected for a trip to Europe recently to watch the preparations for the cup. The trip was organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation as part of its We Play for Gender Equality program.
Asak says the trip taught her a lot about how to bring more equality to Nigerian sports, starting with the Nigeria Football Association, NFA.
“We start from the NFA board,” she says “In Nigeria [until] now, we don’t have a female department.”
Asak says that all 15 members of the board are male, but that there are many female ex-players who would make resourceful board members, coaches and managers.
“They are certified, but many of them are not being placed in this position,” she says. “If they can have a female department and equip it with women who know the game, who have been in the game and know the solutions, we may be on our way to change.”
Alanana says that it comes down to qualifications.
“If you’ve played football as a female, it does not automatically give you a place as a coach,” Alanana says. “If there’s a vacancy for coaches in any team, they will advertise and people apply. People are selected based on their qualifications, not gender.”
Asak says managers must also be dedicated to equality and honesty.
“If I cannot pay the player 1 million naira [$6,380 USD], I should not make the promise,” Asak says.
She says they should sign contracts in which all financial expectations are addressed.
“There should be match bonuses, camp allowances and provide the basic facilities needed,” she says.
Asak says the coach should be like a psychologist to the players.
“If the players need anything, the coach should be there to act actually as this link which they are. In each team, there should be a female coach who the girls can confide in.”
She says education is also important – even just up to high school – so players know their rights in order to avoid abuses, such as sexual harassment.
“Some are being cheated and abused,” she says. “It is not that easy to talk if you are harassed. If you talk, they will blacklist you and you may lose your place.”
This difference in socialization begins at a young age, as many parents buy footballs for boys and dolls for girls. It isn’t strange for a boy to be screaming, “It’s a goal!” at age 2, while the girl is setting up a hairdressing salon, her doll as her first customer.
Some women say they plan to deconstruct gender stereotypes at an early age for their future daughters by encouraging them to explore any interests they please.
“I would buy her everything – books, dolls, balls, musical instruments – and whatever she leans to, we focus on,” Akiode says.
Ajao says she will do the same for her daughter.
“[She will] have freedom to choose her toys by herself, to dismantle a phone and rearrange it if it pleases her,” Ajao says. “She will explore her world of colors – not just pink or blue. She will have free and equal access to be what she wants to be, and our government and society better be ready to embrace equality.”
Akiode’s organization, H4G, works with state governments, schools and organizations to encourage girls interested in basketball.
“We partner with school environments that don’t have sports programs and we create one for them,” Akiode says. “On a national basis, we have camps that bring girls together from all over the country and unite them towards their dreams and aspirations not only in sport but life. At the very top of the pyramid, we find exceptional girls scholarships abroad to the [United States].”
So far, H4G has worked with nine schools in Nigeria, run six major camps and gotten six girls athletic scholarships to school.
“Don’t expect a red carpet waiting for you to play the sport,” Akiode says to girls interested in sports as a career. “You do it because you love it and you are passionate about the game. We have to work 10 times harder to play than our male counterparts, but that’s OK because we are strong. So, don’t be deterred and don’t let anything stop you from what you love.”
Alanana says the government has always supported the NFF.
The Nigerian government has created a national policy on sports and youth development that offers sports as a compulsory subject in school and ensures that no student is discriminated against when it comes to sports, according to a 2010 U.N. report. The policy also lists gender equality as a core value.
“When the game is described as beautiful, the future is seen as feminine and for those who know the link between beauty and feminism, one would not be wrong, if one concludes that football is a woman,” Falode writes in her report.
