Fans are invited to celebrate the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015™ at Fan Zones located in all six official Host Cities: Vancouver, British Columbia; Edmonton, Alberta; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Ottawa, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; and Moncton, New Brunswick. Ranging from in-stadium opportunities for ticket-holders to free off-site events, the Fan Zones offer activities for all ages including live entertainment, interactive displays, activations by FIFA Partners and National Supporters as well as screenings of selected matches and appearances by the official FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015™ mascot Shuéme.
“Fan Zones are an opportunity for fans to celebrate women’s soccer, cheer on their favourite teams, and experience the unique environment that can only be provided by a significant international event such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” says Peter Montopoli, Chief Executive Officer of the National Organizing Committee for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015™. (Underlining mine).
I had a long chat with Nigerian ex-international Sadoh Lorretta on the 22nd day of May 22, 2015. While our chat lasted, she sounded so passionate about the status and place of female football especially in Nigeria. I got struck when she asked me how much I know about female football in Nigeria and how she had always desired that female football be upgraded to
an enviable height. Towards the concluding part of our chat, I promised her we would look into this neglected constituency together and here we are.
I had the privilege of going through the stories told by Fulham’s women’s team to Radhika Sanghani. Below is a detailed report of that story. This story would help us appreciate why we all need to look at improving female soccer in Nigeria.
“In England, dozens of women take part in the 'Homeless FA' each year - a football programme with a World Cup of its own. Fulham's women's team tell their stories to Radhika Sanghani
Stacey Scannell became homeless at the age of 24. She’d been in an abusive relationship, and when she managed to leave her partner, it also meant abandoning their shared home.
“I went to the police,” she tells me. “That’s where I said I needed help. They took me to an emergency women-only hostel and I was given a place there.”
The police arrested her partner and he was later found guilty in court and sentenced to community service. In the meantime, Scannell was given therapy through the refuge, and started to try and get back into work as an assistant sports coach and nursery nurse.
But her experiences of abuse and homelessness left scars:
“I didn’t have much confidence. I’d kind of withdrawn. The thing with domestic violence, the normal day to day simple choices you normally make – that gets taken away from you. Even to the point of deciding what tea you want.”
Four years on, Scannell, now 28, has left that insecurity and low self-esteem behind her.
She’s confident, working as a sports coach and part-time career, and living in private rental accommodation, which means she’s no longer homeless.
When she was living in the hostel, Scannell was offered an opportunity to take part in the women’s Homeless FA– England’s national homeless football initiative, running in conjunction with the Football Association and youth homelessness charity Centre Point.
It involved a six-week programme at Arsenal football club (a number of premier league clubs take part, such as Fulham and Manchester City), where Scannell would receive a coaching qualification and be in with a chance to represent England in the 'Homeless World Cup'.
“I’d never played football before,” says Scannell, “but I thought it sounded good and it would help me.”
It did – she made the England women’s team for the World Cup, along with 23 other players – and they went off to Poland to play against 64 other countries.
They didn’t win, but it didn’t matter, because Scannell gained more than a trophy.
“Homelessness strips everything you are as a human being,” she explains. “But this course gave me confidence and self-belief. Being part of a team, making friends, building your trust up again in people – it all helps you to value yourself. What’s nice is you’re given a choice.
“In sport it’s about enabling you as a person to enable yourself. So I was challenging myself, but in a positive way. They help you with life skills, so it enables you slowly to keep it together. I feel the effects of it to this day.”
Now Scannell is helping other young women receive those same benefits, by working as a paid mentor at Fulham football club’s training programme for the homeless.
She’s in the middle of a six weeks course spent working with a group of young women, two of who will be selected for the World Cup.
They’ll then compete for Team England alongside other female players from the 11 other clubs taking part in the UK. Its tough competition with around 150 women taking part in the scheme this year – especially because they’re not just being judged on their football skills.
The Homeless FA stresses that players aren’t selected on their footballing ability – instead it’s all about their attitude, teamwork, commitment, organisational skills and improved physical wellbeing.
They don’t even have to be good at kicking the ball.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t seriously improve their skills. Shirley Asojo, 23, has been homeless for four years and suffers from autism and dyslexia. She’s currently studying at Beauty College, and has always seen herself as ‘girly’ and not into sport.
Until now, that is.
“It’s definitely given me more football skills and I’m getting fit,” she says. “I’m still me - I like football but I wear pink. I wore a skirt the first time because I forgot sports clothes and I scored goals. But now I want to go to the World Cup.”
She’s also getting into women’s sport and says: “They should bring more women’s sport on TV. Some players are really good. I watched a couple of women’s games on the internet and was like, ‘whoah’. They can shoot goals better than men.”
Her newfound passion has even impacted her long-standing dream to work in beauty, as she now wants it to incorporate sport in some way.
“In beauty and in sport you learn about the inside of the muscles,” she explains. “It does (this sentence seems incomplete; no fullstop...)
She’s not the only one to see football impact her life so drastically.
Isabella Sinha, 27, is taking part in this year’s training programme at Fulham and says: “I have severe vision difficulties but playing football has made me realise certain things about how I move. When I’m on the pitch, I’m fine.
“It’s made me more self-aware and taught me more about my disability. It’s funny – I didn’t expect all this self-awareness; I was just expecting to play football.”
Sinha first became homeless nine years ago where she left home due to family problems. After a short period of sleeping rough, she moved into a women’s refuge, and then the YMCA.
She joined the Homeless FA because her hometown Watford had just been promoted to the premier league and she was feeling inspired – and keen to get the coaching qualification offered by the programme.
“I think it’s great,” she says. “Especially because sometimes I feel the gap in my CV is getting wider due to my experiences. I haven’t been able to do everything I want to do. But I keep thinking I can’t be too hard on myself.”
Sinha is keen to show that homeless people can be as ambitious as anyone else – something Kirsty Thorpe, 38, is also passionate about.
She’s been homeless for two years after suffering mental problems and says: “There’s a huge underbelly you don’t even realize exists of people who have nowhere to go. When you’re homeless it’s like being on the reserve bench for ever.
“You don’t ever get any rest. You feel you’re in limbo and there’s a sense of insecurity and not knowing what was happening.
"But now I’m really trying to smash stereotypes in the community by supporting the Homeless FA.”. The above scenario torch-lights the experience of an average Nigerian female only to the extent that there are no structures that would help grant security, joy and an inept understanding of the laws and nature of the game.
Women's football has been played in England for over a century, sharing a common history with the men's game as the country in which the Laws of the Game were codified. Women's football was very popular in the early 20th century. After an almost terminal decline it has only been since the 1990s that the game has seen a large increase in female players, as well as in female spectators, culminating in England hosting the Women's European Championships in 2005.
With women's football only growing slowly, the FA finally took a step further and brought all women's football under its direct control in 1993; although by this time the WFA had already created the Women's National League, which would become the Women's Premier League in 1992 to parallel the renaming of the top level of men's competition. As most professional men's clubs chose to create, or affiliate to, a women's team and with the sport gradually growing, in 2008 the league system received a shake-up with the announcement of a new top-level competition - the Women's Super League - which took the best eight teams following sixteen applications, placing them into a no-relegation single division, designed to draw greater exposure and money into the game. The founding of the WSL did not run without problems. Nevertheless, the WSL did launch at its anticipated 2011 start date, and was successful enough to expand to a two-division, 20-team set-up in 2014.
Today, the FA directly runs the top women's competitions. The most significant national competition is the national cup, the FA Women's Cup, followed by the top national league, the FA WSL (Women's Super League). Before the formation of the WSL in 2011, the top flight was the FA Women's Premier League National Division, which later become the second-level league and has now been reorganized into the third and fourth levels of the pyramid. Originally, the Premier League champion was the only English representative allowed in Europe. When the UEFA Women's Cup was re-launched as the UEFA Women's Champions League for the 2009–10 season, England became one of eight nations with two Champions League places, a status it has retained ever since. In the first two seasons of the new Champions League, England's two places were filled by the Premier League champion and the FA Women's Cup winner. For 2011–12, the two finalists in the 2010–11 FA Women's Cup earned the Champions League places. Starting with the 2012–13 Champions League, the two berths were initially planned to go to the WSL and FA Women's Cup champions, but the FA chose instead to send the top two teams from the WSL. Women's football also has two significant secondary cup competitions. The FA WSL Cup, contested by the WSL teams, is held after the league season. The Premier League Cup, limited to the teams in the Premier League and its regional subdivisions, is held during the league season.
It should be noted here that the WSL and Premier League operate on different season structures—the WSL conducts a summer season contained entirely within a calendar year, whilst the Premier League continues to operate on the traditional winter season spanning two calendar years.
The women's football pyramid was significantly reorganized in 2014. The WSL added a second division known as WSL 2, with the original WSL becoming WSL 1. The Premier League's regional North and South Divisions became the third level of the pyramid, with the Combination Women's Football Leagues becoming the fourth level. Further changes came in 2015; the FA announced that both divisions of the WSL would expand by one team in 2016, and WSL 2 would also add a team in 2017. Significantly, the new WSL 2 entries will come via promotion from the Premier League, connecting the WSL to the rest of the pyramid for the first time.
To promote women's football, the FA allows cup finals to be held at various men's Premier League/Football League stadia throughout the country (as opposed to men's finals which are usually held at the national stadiums). In the 2013–14 seasons, the FA Cup final was held at MK Dons's Stadium mk, the WSL Cup final at Wycombe Wanderers' Adams Park, and the League Cup final at Burton Albion’s Pirelli Stadium. (Underlining mine).
The structure in England notwithstanding a contrast can be drawn to America, where women’s football – or soccer – did not spring up randomly and organically, but is an organized, fully professional sport. Like other sports in the US, women’s soccer benefited from the passage of Title IX in 1972, a rule that mandates equal funding for women’s athletics programmes in college. This led to the formation of women’s soccer teams at universities; a national team followed in 1985. The US, not a traditional football-playing country, dominates international women’s football.
In Asia, as Member Associations the length and the breadth of the continent celebrate the inaugural Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Football Day with various initiatives that will serve to develop and promote the game, inspiration for the next generation of female footballers can be found in the Asian stars that have shone in AFC and FIFA tournaments over the years.
AFC.com took a look at four players who have made their mark in Asian women’s football and can serve as role models for young girls who have ambitions to play the game at the highest level.
Chou Tai-ying (Chinese Taipei)
In the formative years of women’s football in Asia it was Chinese Taipei that was the continent’s dominant side and the East Asian nation’s standout player was unquestionably Chou Tai-ying.
Notable for winning continental titles in two confederations Chou was part of the famous ‘Mulan’ side that won three consecutive AFC Women’s Asian Cups (1977, 1979 and 1981) and two OFC Women’s Championships (1986 and 1989), before becoming one of the first Asian footballers, male or female, to enjoy a successful spell at a club in Europe, winning German women’s league titles in 1988 and 1989 with SV Bergisch Gladbach 09. Chou followed her stint in Germany with a stint in Japan, finishing top scorer in her first season as Suzuyo Shimizu F.C. Lovely Ladies won the inaugural Nadeshiko League in 1989. Captain of the Chinese Taipei side that reached the quarter-finals of the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991, Chou retired from playing after the 1994 Asian Games before later having a spell as manager of the national team in 2005.
Sun Wen (China)
Arguably the greatest women’s footballer of her generation, Sun Wen was an integral part of China’s ‘Steel Roses’ side that ruled the Asian women’s game throughout the 1990s. In an international career spanning over 15 years Sun helped China to four AFC Women’s Asian Cup titles (1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997) and represented her country at four FIFA World Cups, emerging as top scorer and player of the tournament as China finished runners-up to hosts USA in 1999. Named FIFA Female player of the Century alongside Michelle Akers in 2000, Sun was the first round draft pick by Atlanta Beat in the inaugural season of the USA-based Women’s United Soccer Association League the following year having spent all her career with hometown club Shanghai.
Homare Sawa (Japan)
Two-time AFC Women’s Player of the Year Homare Sawa has participated in the last five FIFA Women’s World Cups, with the mercurial midfielder finishing top scorer and tournament MVP as the Nadeshiko took top honours in 2011 to become Asia’s first women’s world champions. Since scoring four times on her international debut against the Philippines at the age of 15, Sawa has gone on to become Japan’s most capped female footballer as well as the Nadeshiko’s all-time leading scorer but it was only last year that she tasted continental glory for the first time to help Japan win the 2014 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, two years after announcing her international retirement following Japan’s silver medal win at the London Olympics. An inductee into the inaugural AFC Hall of Fame, the only ‘active player’ to receive the honour at last year’s joint AFC Annual Awards and 60th Anniversary celebrations in Manila, Sawa's numerous club accolades include ten Nadeshiko league winners’ medals (eight with Yomiuri/NTV Belesa and two with INAC Kobe Leonessa) and a place in the league’s best 11 for 11 seasons.
Ji So-yun (Korea Republic)
Despite having turned just 24 last month, Ji So-yun is already an established superstar of the Asian women’s game and the 2013 AFC Women’s Player of the Year can lay claim to a number of significant achievements for her country. Aged just 15 years and 282 days, Ji’s two goals against Chinese Taipei at the 2006 Asian Games saw her become the Korea Republic women’s national team’s youngest goal scorer while her three goals in the 4-0 win over Switzerland in their 2010 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup opener made her the first Korea to hit a hat-trick in the finals of a FIFA tournament. After earning the Silver Ball and Silver Shoe awards as the Koreans finished third at Germany 2010, Ji joined Japanese side INAC Kobe Leonessa where she won two Nadeshiko League titles, averaging a goal almost every two games prior to her move to Chelsea Ladies in January 2014. Ji made an immediate impact in her first season in the English FA WSL (Football Association Women’s Super League) and won the 2014 Players’ Player of the Year award to add impressive array of Korean accolades, with the 2009 AFC U-19 Championship Top Scorer having been named the KFA Women’s Footballer of the Year in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.
We have looked at a few of what the Asian continent could offer, but if you personally know these players or have watched them play, you would agree with me that the raw materials from this part of Africa could do better if properly harnessed and directed.
The Nigeria national women's football team, nicknamed the Super Falcons, is the national team of Nigeria and is controlled by the Nigeria Football Federation. They won the first seven African championships and through 2011 lost only five games to African competition: December 12, 2002 to Ghana in Warri, June 3, 2007 at Algeria, August 12, 2007 to Ghana in an Olympic qualifier, November 25, 2008 at Equatorial Guinea in the semis of the 2008 Women's African Football Championship and May 2011 at Ghana in an All Africa Games qualification match.
The Super Falcons have been unable to dominate beyond Africa in such arena as the FIFA Women's World Cup or the Olympic Games. The team has been to every World Cup since 1991, but managed just once to finish in the top eight. In 2003, the Super Falcons turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the first round, failing to score a single goal and losing all three Group A matches. They did little better in 2007, drawing only one of their Group B matches. However, it must also be noted in their defense that they faced the group of death in both 2003 and 2007, grouped both times with rising Asian power North Korea, traditional European power Sweden, and a historic women's superpower in the USA.
The time has come for Nigerian Women Football to move to the next level. We are blessed with skillful, athletic and experienced female footballers. However, as earlier pointed out our structure has really not helped these ladies to grow.
Many Nigerian Women League footballers are yet to receive their salaries for the past two years and yet they still play, keeping hope alive that in a twist of fate, a miracle might just happen. This underscores why most of the ladies seek greener pastures abroad.
Not until recently, the Nigerian Football Federation had neglected the female national team, paying little attention to their welfare compared to what goes on with the Male National team. While many argue that the female team should not expect the kind of treatment the male teams get from the federation, I think in all fairness and honesty that the female team should be supported fully by the Federation. It’s a thing of great joy to note that the current administration of the Federation headed by Mr. Amaju Pinnick has now drawn itself closer to the team and it’s overly concerned about the wellbeing and welfare of the team.
The advancement and promotion of female football in Nigeria would go a long way towards the repositioning of the female psyche, the success of our female teams in world cup competitionsand the overall good of our Women League which is currently way beyond standard.
The problem with some of our coaches is that they don’t take the pains to travel to watch female league. The country is blessed with talented footballers and the problem of mismanagement is just the bane.
We have more serious and talented players who would have done better but, because of sentiments and ‘god-fatherism’, they dropped some of them.
We could advance the course of Nigerian Women Football by doing the following:
Building partnerships by calling on governments, in particular sports, health, education sector etc., to discuss how their objectives can be realized through football, especially football for girls and women.
Establishing women’s football development plans and developing the funding strategies to achieve them.
Creating or reinforcing structures in their associations to support the development of women’s football and to provide the necessary human and financial resources, as well as the commitment from the associations’ leadership to ensure its success.
Establishing grassroots programmes in schools, communities and clubs, to create more opportunities for girls and women to participate in football.
Establishing or reinforcing football competitions at national and regional levels to give young women and girls the opportunity to continue to develop their skills in the game of football.
While we relish the very interesting story told by Fulham’s women, the wonderful glory of United States Female football, and the very inspiring quartet from the Asian continent and the euphoria of gradually leaving the shadow of Nigerian Women soccer, we are confident that if the solutions provided in this little piece are considered we shall sing songs of glory. We wish the Super Falcons and the entire Nigerian Football Family the best in the Women World Cup Canada 2015.
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