[MUSIC PLAYING – “Merci Kylian” by Laurent Dubois]
Ron Krabill: Hello, and welcome to the third episode of the podcast of the Global Sport Lab. I’m Ron Krabill and I’m your host as well as the director of the Global Sport Lab and a professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. The Global Sport Lab is a new collaboration based in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. The lab uses the lens of sport to explore the big issues of our global world, including inequity, migration, politics, racism, misogyny, human rights, popular culture, democracy, and the economy, to name just a few. We are particularly focused on the sport of football, better known as soccer in the United States, during the run-up to Seattle’s hosting of the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2026. But we are interested in a wide range of sports, well-known and less well-known, from the grassroots to the professional levels, and how they help us make meaning of the world. Special thanks to the musician and scholar of global football, Laurent Dubois, and Woti Production for the use of our theme music, “Merci Kylian,” available on Spotify and Apple Music. Today’s episode features a conversation with Dr. Martha Saavedra, who spoke earlier today on campus about African women, gender, and football. Martha is the associate director of the Center for African Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she manages the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, which brings 30 African scholars to Berkeley each year to pursue their graduate degrees, along with many other African-focused research, fellowship, and public programs. She has taught in California, Ohio, and Madrid. And her own research focuses on agrarian politics in Sudan and of particular interest to us today, gender and development and sport in Africa, especially women and girls in football. She is a veteran of the Title IX battles in the United States. And she has been involved with football most of her life as a player, coach, scholar, and fan. Welcome, Martha.
Martha Saveedra: Hello.
Ron: Also joining us today is Professor Caley Cook, teaching professor and director of journalism in the communication department here at the University of Washington. Caley, could you let us know a bit more about yourself?
Caley Cook: Yeah, I’m a teaching professor here at U-Dub in the department of communication where I run the journalism program, now known as the journalism and public interest communication program. I’m a longtime fan of the soccer or the football, and I’ve written extensively about women’s sports, Olympic sports, and soccer in America, so I’m really excited to be here today.
Ron: Fantastic. Thanks. Thanks for being here. So I’d like to begin today with a general question, Martha, building off your talk earlier today. How would you describe the current status of women footballers in Africa and African women footballers in the world?
Martha: Well, as I was making the arc of change in talking about it today, things have gotten better in the sense that there are more women and girls playing the game, there’s more opportunities for them to play the game, whether it’s at the grassroots level or all the way up to the national level. And this is– well, there’s lots of reasons because of it, but I think at the institutional level, FIFA and CAF, which is the Confederation of African Football, they have made more tournaments available, more opportunities for competition. But at the grassroots level, it’s really because of a lot of people who have worked really hard over many years to make it happen and, of course, the women themselves who’ve been able to come out and do it. So there’s more– I mean, in the sense of numbers, there’s more people playing. I think many of them still face the same problems that I had seen 20 years ago, in that there’s still opposition in many parts to women playing. Maybe that’s– the glass ceiling is shattering a little bit in some places, but in some places, it’s still– people think that it’s a masculine enterprise, and that men should be involved. Women might be able to be fans, they might be able to have sons that go play, but for themselves to do it, not as much. But again– and we can talk about some examples– there are, at multiple levels, more and more opportunities. So it’s still a struggle, but then we can even say, it’s still even a struggle in the United States where soccer football is not necessarily seen as the masculine enterprise, other sports are so much, but women still have to struggle to get the same opportunities, the same prize money, the same support even in a country where we have seen a lot of women play.
Ron: Thank you.
Caley: It seems like such an interesting business moment. I mean, you’re talking about the money’s sort of there, it’s sort of increasing. The prize money’s there now, at least better than it used to be. And the investment is there, especially in the American leagues, and when we’re seeing some of the African players come into European leagues as well. When do you think we’re going to see that investment come in through more of the grassroots areas? We’re seeing it at the higher levels like the NWSL and some of the other places, but we’re not seeing that investment in women’s health and equality in ways to approach and keep women safe, what do you think the plan is there?
Martha: Well, as we know, in the global health world, a lot has been pulled back recently by that particular entity, but even outside of the USAID cuts and the cuts from the US government, I’ve even heard that in the UK, they’re pulling back on those sorts of things, in the EU, they’re pulling back on those sorts of things. A few places are stepping up, I think, some of the Scandinavian countries. But one of the interesting conversations on this, and particularly thinking about women’s health on the African continent, there are many people who’ve said like, great. USAID money or whatever is great, but more of it needs to be coming from the local sources. And so, if it’s the governments, if it’s different ways of organizing health care– so that is something– I’m a political scientist too, and so thinking about how African governments would both raise the funds and then allocate the funds for things like that, it’s hard, but maybe something will come through. Everybody always says African solutions to African problems and making perhaps lemonade out of lemons, maybe some governments will step up, but I think we’re still in the wait and see there.
In terms of women’s football, though, it is true that there’s more prize money. The part of it is because federations and clubs are being forced to do it. So FIFA has said, if you want to participate in X, Y, Z, or if you want our money, these financial supports, you have to allocate so much for women, or if you want to participate in these competitions, you have to have more investment or more opportunities for women. Now, I mean, I don’t want to paint FIFA as the good operator here, there’s a lot of issues. And if FIFA wanted to just cut a small portion of everything they do over to the women’s game, well, they could, and it would make a huge difference. But they have other things that they’re concerned with. The Confederation of African Football has likewise said– and I mentioned in the talk today– for instance, recently in the club championships that they’ve established around the continent, on the men’s side, the men’s teams have to have women’s teams. And even though– there’s been discussion about different models for women’s football around the world, and maybe it isn’t always the best thing or the wise thing to have women’s teams connected to men’s teams. It may be the moment in many African spaces that this might be the way to get more happening, even though we know in the development of women’s football on the continent, women’s teams have had to develop outside of the structures, that men’s sides. And this is true in Europe. I was mentioning Real Madrid recently or even Manchester United, it hasn’t been that long ago that they established women’s teams. But on the African continent, this– well, carrot stick dangling in front for the men’s club championships may help. CAF has also raised the prize money, but it’s still relatively minimal compared to what the men get. So it’s where do– this is how they value women, it’s just that much less. Yes, there’s more, but it’s still a lot less than what the men get.
At the local level, though, I mean, I think I do have– I do have some hope. And you have to have hope, you have to have optimism somewhere. But I’m very involved with Soccer Without Borders. And full disclosure, I’m on the board of Soccer Without Borders, which has a hub in Uganda, they also work in the United States, but they also– from their hub in Uganda, where they work directly with many young people. In Kampala, they also work with many different organizations across the continent doing the Global Goal 5 Accelerators where they bring in people and train them on coaching and how to run leagues. Some of that is funded by the Germans, the German GISAID, and then Common Goal, which is based in Europe as well. And Common Goal– actually, the funding model there– I think initially, when they were– initially, they had gotten funding maybe from FIFA–but mostly, it is– well, they have lots of different ways of making money, but big superstars or even clubs put 1% or 2% of their earnings into that to try to grow the game. And so this is from within the soccer community itself trying to put money towards that. But I’ve seen the ability.
Another example is Moving the Goalposts in Kilifi, Kenya. And if anybody has heard me or read anything, I’ve talked about them a lot, and I love their model, and it started over 20 years ago in– yeah, 25 years ago now. And Sarah Forde, who’s a British woman, went out, and she met somebody, fell in love with this person and decided to move there. But she already had in her background– she was an FA [The Football Association] licensed coach. She had a degree in development studies, she was a journalist. So she had a lot of these. And she’s a really great person and said, hey, let’s start something for girls in Kilifi, Kenya, which is in coastal Kenya. It’s a place even within Kenya where women have suffered a lot and the bottom fell out with colonialism, postcolonialism, and women faced a lot of problems there. They had the highest HIV rates. There’s a huge– it’s beautiful there, so there’s a lot of tourists that come in. But that also led to a lot of problems, or let’s say exploitation. And she started this soccer program for girls there. And one of the key things– and a lot has happened, and people can look up mtg.org and see what they do. But a lot of what they do is, the girls are helping themselves. So it’s train the trainer, coach the coach, and they’re building up the abilities of– the skills and the abilities to be coaches, referees, how to run programs, how to do databases, how to do evaluations, how to run the organization, how to drive the bus to take the girls, and buy the bus to take the girls to a practice, which transportation is one of the hugest issues. So they’ve bought fields, or they bought a, they have a facility now, and they have fields, they put lights up. And all of a sudden, everybody– they start respecting them, and then they want to work with them. And the boys are like, hey, what about us? So they started a program to reach out to the boys and the men too to bring them into it. The women and the girls come first, and the boys can then come and support. So it’s a great model, and they just have some amazing outcomes from that. And so I think that building it up from the bottom is maybe a more secure, sustainable way of doing it. But it’s a lot of hard work, I mean, let’s just say day to day, all of these things are a lot of hard work.
Ron: That raises a super interesting question to me about how much we should think about the local grassroots, informal soccer infrastructure in the same frame as the big business and getting bigger business of global football. Is that helpful to think about them in the same frame and focus on the relationship between the two? Or are they on such separate scales and in different worlds that it’s actually better to say, let’s just focus on the grassroots, let’s build the grassroots, who really cares what the big professional crowd is doing?
Martha: Yeah. Well, I mean, you mentioned something about informal, and I think I mean, there is definitely informal pickup games and things like that. But I would even say on the grassroots, a lot of it is actually formal in the sense that there are work plans and there are ways of training people. And I mentioned Sarah Forde, this British woman. She backed out of it, and she made sure that local people were trained and could take over. So it’s been many years now since local– I mean, it’s a fully local board for Moving the Goalposts now. So there is this intentionality around it, I think, and the dedication. And now you might still have pickup games, I mean, this is the way a lot of people start. And I don’t know, it’s almost like a wave that will come in and go out.
I could be wrong about this, but in my observations, women and girls don’t tend to participate in as fully formal pickup ones, maybe a little bit here and there, but it’s harder for women to go into these spaces and claim spaces. And so if in– with Soccer Without Borders in Kampala, for instance, they’ve created these specific girls’ leagues. And initially, it was all in house, and then they invited others to come on. And in Uganda, they’re mainly– the Soccer Without Borders–is mainly dealing with refugee communities. But in this global– in the Kampala girls league, they’ve also extended it to others, so you now have local Ugandans also playing in it. And I think there is an intentionality, but it’s also maybe keeping it somewhat simple. It doesn’t have to be a full field, 11 v 11, it could be a smaller size. It could be the games happen at the same place all the time. Transportation– that’s one of the huge issues, transportation, getting people to the field. We have mantras in Soccer Without Borders, and one of them is get them to the field. So how do we do that? And I think that, again, the intentionality and thinking about the safeguarding of people to make sure they get there safely. There were some exercises, and this was in a different project that a friend of mine, Mary Ann Meyer, was working. And I think Zambia and South Africa on some of these more grassroots soccer endeavors and had the young people, particularly women, map out their community and the safety of it. OK, so you live here, the field’s over there, Map out how you get there. And it wasn’t necessarily a geographic map, but it was the obstacles along the way and what you have to watch out for and then trying to figure out from the youth’s point of view what is needed to make something work. And again, solving those problems is not always easy.
Ron: That’s really powerful.
Caley: I think one of the things that we talk a lot about when we’re talking about soccer or the Global Sport Lab is thinking about soccer here as a very goal-oriented thing. And you talked about this a little bit in your talk today about how there was buy-in that came from moms and dads for their girls to play, once it was like, oh, you could get housing out of this, or you could get paid for this. There could be an outcome. And it’s one of the things I’m really critical about in American sports–and I’m currently writing a book about this–just looking at how we’ve corrupted the health that comes from youth sports, grassroots sports is, do you feel like it’s been a positive development in these leagues that girls and women are able to claim this piece and we’re rising from what we previously had? Or is this equally as damaging as it has been in American youth sports?
Martha: Yeah. Again, I think the intentionality has to be there. And just in the Soccer Without Borders world, for instance, yes, competition is important, yes, you want to get better at soccer, but you also want to respect everybody there. And so at the end– and whether it’s in the United States, or in Kampala, or Nicaragua, and other places where Soccer Without Borders has worked, at the beginning and the end, you go through– so what are the ground rules? And it’s not just the rules of football or soccer, but also how you respect other people and how you’re going to handle things. And then at the end, they do circles where they call out, what is the good thing? Even among your opponents, oh, I really liked what you did here, or your teammates, so trying to build a sense of the community that’s involved in making this happen. And then I think one of the big differences maybe is just having the kids do a lot of the work themselves, of getting the field ready and– because in the United States, I mean, the kids show up and like, oh yeah, who’s putting the cones out?
Caley: After paying $15,000 for the right to be there.
Martha: Right. But there’s a lot more involvement to understand where everything comes from, I think. So it’s not just put on the platter for them, and there’s an understanding of that. But I do think the intentionality, and also a lot of training for coaches, trauma-informed training, especially knowing that people may have been coming from difficult situations, either lifelong or just today, and having some sense of how to manage that. And if you’ve ever coached young people– whew! I’ve coached some young boys, and it’s sometimes just managing the little things, especially as they get to be preteens, having tools in the box, how to not just deal with conflicts that come up, but just try to make them feel whole and safe. And the Soccer Without Borders has this family framework and family– I can’t remember–it stands for a bunch of different things. You can go on their website and go look up family framework and look at all the different things. And it’s a huge list of things that the coaches are trained in to make sure that things are set up safely on the field. But then also they’ve introduced what the plan of action is to the kids, so the kids do have a sense of being there, accepted as their whole person, and that there’s a sense of safety there. Now, again, people are people, and things happen, but there’s an attempt to really try to create a much more inclusive environment.
Caley: They need to be having conferences with US soccer, I think.
Martha: Well, this is the intent.
Caley: We’re playing catch-up in a lot of ways. I mean, I’ve heard a lot about the work of Soccer Without Borders, and one of the things they’re really good at is looking at the whole human being, awe have not done a good job of that in American sports for a really long time. Now, I think that is a focus now, right? But how much catch-up do we have so that our kids are actually whole and thinking about the body as more than just a self? I think it’s a long way off.
Martha: And I would say a lot of the work there is training the staff, and really– and not just one time, oh, have training today and then go forth.
Caley: Here’s a half hour about mental health.
Martha: It’s constant. It’s constant. I just know that from working with students at the university is– when you’re putting all this out, you constantly need some people to help reflect, maybe on specific cases, but just also to fill up your own tank. And to get a sense of your– I mean, I think this is maybe true with faculty members and others. If you have a sense of your own efficacy, I think it comes through in your work with other people, and that you have a sense of your pathway.
Ron: I like how you framed that, Caley, in terms of the goals, because I think that’s right. There’s so much emphasis in a lot of US soccer around US soccer licensing and the sensing grassroots groups that, oh, our folks who know a lot about the sport can’t get jobs coaching because they don’t have either the money or the time to get the US Soccer Federation or even FIFA’s coaching licensing. But then you’re talking about a totally different kind of coach preparation, coach training, which is, again, about the whole person, not just, are you good at coaching the sport itself, but are you also equipped to deal with all the human– baggage is the word that comes straight to mind, which says something. Is it baggage, or is it just being human? But we tend to think of it as baggage and think of it as getting in the way of the sport as opposed to being part of the sport. And then how do you work with young people, especially to recognize their strengths in the midst of that rather than seeing it as a weakness?
Caley: It’s seen as a burden to view kids, youth, and players as something more than the sport itself. Oh, you’re distracted today, right? I don’t know that we’ll ever find a good equilibrium on that, but I don’t know if that’s different in other countries and the view of that as being a weakness.
Martha: Outside of these organizations, there was this, another group in Rwanda. And the name– I think the name kept on changing. And the woman that I’m going to mention– she’s no longer doing this, but I witnessed her. She was, she had been on the national team at one point, and then she started coaching. And I witnessed her with growing 50, 60, 70 kids, I mean, at one point. And it was in a dry riverbed, when it really rains, it probably fills up. And in the background are these trucks that are scooping the sand out to use for construction elsewhere. So there’s a lot going on in this space, animals, and other things. But she had all these kids out there, boys and girls. And she was able to have all of them involved in play and drills, and they were different ages. And then she introduced this game where they were learning about gender-based equity in the game. And I was just amazed at this woman, how she managed to orchestrate all these kids of different ages, different genders in this field with a lot of– I mean, she had some people helping her in this. And I don’t really know where she got the training at this point. Maybe I did, and I’ve forgotten. But I do think maybe it’s a flair that some people have, but I think it is also some training. There was this organization that she’d been working with. And so it is possible, there may also be cultural things that kids may be more likely to listen to somebody. In the way here in the United States, kids are very individual, and they’re taught very early on to fight for their own space or in other spaces. They’re not in– we’ve worked in another area with some psychologists who suggest that there is this potential difference culturally in some places where people may not be as likely to demand their own personal space. But the whole psychology is another issue, that maybe cross-cultural psychology– we can take up another time.
Ron: But it makes me think again of the ways in which development of soccer is similar to other development discourses, where the idea that there’s one size that fits all, and it should look in the United States, it should look in England, it should look in Uganda, it should look in Nicaragua. It just doesn’t hold up. And that tendency to want to be able to just graft one model on in all situations, even on the professional level, even the question of, do we need all the powerful men’s teams to develop women’s teams to make the sport strong? Or is it better to have women’s teams develop professional teams on their own? And that may just be different in different places as well.
Martha: Yes, that actually is a huge issue. I mean, even here in the United States, when the NCAA took over the women’s collegiate sports, was that a good thing, or was that a bad thing? Some people would think, yes, that made opportunities, but then all the women coaches left. And you get subsumed into something that was created for something else. And certainly, I think definitely, there needs to be a lot more research in documenting exactly how various women’s soccer organizations in different communities and countries have developed. But I know from the work both in Senegal, and in South Africa, and even in Nigeria that I did early on, there were these separate women’s organizations for soccer, for football, and then they get subsumed under the men’s side. And, again, maybe there’s more support and there’s more funding and infrastructure. But then again, maybe it’s just a way of pushing them off to the side or saying, oh, look what we did for you. So that’s always a– and again, why should the men’s side always have more?
Caley: It’s crazy because I felt like we recognized about a decade ago that this part– this linking between men’s programs and women’s programs wasn’t working. I feel more than that, I feel like everyone was like, ok, this is just a way to launch women into this space where they can independently financially exist. And I feel like we knew what the problems were associated with that, and yet we continue to see this happen. Even in Seattle, we watched the Sounders purchase the [Seattle] Reign, and all of the complication involved in that, of course. But as a hometown team, I’m going to say really positive things about the Reign. But I mean, there are really big complications with that. Is that the same on the African continent? Is that a similar trend? Is it changing?
Martha: This is an area for research I think that I can’t really tell you. I mean, I think I’ve mentioned the CAF saying that the club teams, the men’s club teams had to have women’s teams. I think in some cases, they’re setting up maybe semi-formal or just an MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] with some women’s team out there. And maybe that’ll allow them the space, who knows? I think that the investigation has to be done to see if that really makes a difference. And then if you look at the national teams, what’s interesting is that a lot of times, the women’s sides are doing much better than the men’s sides. I mean, this happened in the United States even. But do they get the recognition? Do they get, I guess, the red carpet rolled out for them? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I had mentioned in my talk about the Senegalese basketball. and the women’s side really did do well. And there was a huge popular outpouring for the women’s basketball. And this was from the ’90s on. It’s interesting because now that the NBA [National Basketball Association] is they’re recruiting– I wonder if that’s changing a little bit. I think women’s basketball is still big in Senegal, but there’s more lucrative opportunities for men to do something. And this is basketball. But when the NBA came in and set up an academy, it was for boys. I mean, I visited, it’s very nice, they had a lot of women involved, Senegalese women involved. But it’s like, ok, where’s the women’s academy?
Caley: And how do we build off the success that’s clearly happening now? I mean, Nigeria, South Africa– was it Morocco? To all in the groups advancing into the stages of the World Cup. You have Zambia winning their first game, right? These are real changes that haven’t happened until now, so what is it that got us there? I really do wonder because it seems like so many layers of support had to happen to make this possible.
Martha: And as I mentioned at the beginning of my talk earlier today, I’m hoping that the young people that were there in the room can start picking up and doing some of this research because I think we can say, well, maybe you have conjecture about this and that and the other thing, but someone needs to go and interview all of these– the 12 African women that are in the NWSL. And there are lots of news reports and other things, but actually talk to them about, OK, so how did they get to where they got? What do they see? Document that, go and find all the other people, talk to the coaches. And Zambia is doing great, but there was this huge sexual harassment issue with the coach even there.
Caley: And then we never heard anything about it. What was the outcome?
Martha: No, no. And there may be things that people cannot say, but not that we didn’t have these problems in the United States. And even in the men’s game, there’s problems. And I think the safeguarding issues have to be there for everybody, even in men’s professional sports. I mean, men get discarded very easily in professional sports. And in American football, the whole CTE thing is there. But in professional football, soccer, across– there’s so many men who– and some of them are– ok, it’s worth it to take that chance, and I had my little opportunity, maybe got a call-up. But I think that looking at the whole person going back to that and– yeah, you would just– yes, it’s a business, and some people– well, this is what they– they have to make these business decisions. But still thinking about how to make us– well, I would hope that to make these spaces positive for people. And even if they don’t make it and get the highest transfer fee for them, if they could have a good experience and take it with them and make something else out of it, that would be great. And going back to the grassroots side of things, I do think that while sport is important, there’s so many different kinds of skills that people can learn from that that can be translated. I mean, if you can organize a tournament, if you can organize a league, you’ve got major skills that can be transferred to other things. And so, at a youth level, having kids involved in that and then saying, ok, if you– you can take this and become an entrepreneur someplace else, or you can learn how to transfer that into a job in something else. I think to see it more in a bigger frame that these experiences are not just about sport, but they’re about the human condition and the social condition.
Caley: That’s a big question, it’s like, what is sport for? What are we truly getting out of this? What’s the point? I think all of us would say there’s a lot of point, but I think it is a question that we’re not wrestling enough with.
Ron: And I think it also comes back to the huge influx of money into the system, shifts the point to the making of the money, not only for players, but for coaches, for clubs, for organizations, for marketing all the way across the board, and then the way that distorts what is the goal. Suddenly, the goal becomes the money as opposed to maybe a more holistic approach. One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot– and I think we’re seeing this with the influx of money into the women’s game– is the pressure on– and we see this in collegiate sports with NIL– is the pressure on very young athletes to brand themselves, to make a brand out of themselves. And what that does to– now, not only do you have to be great at your sport, you also have to be social media attractive, and you need to have a personality that everyone finds quirky enough to be different, but not so quirky that you’re weird. And so– I mean, the pressures that puts on people to perform in a different way and a different kind of labor. And I think so often we think, oh, more money will release people from having to do their other jobs, which they were having to do to be professionals, but it also generates a different kind of labor that now, especially young athletes, have to do.
Martha: Yes, it’s not something that just applies to women, though. I mean, I think it’s up and down, up and down, all the ranks. There’s a lot talk about this new generation of players, because everybody’s so cute, cute, cute into social media and things like that. But I mean, the opportunities are not going to be if there aren’t more resources, but it’s how are those resources going to be deployed and who’s going to be making the choices with them. Some of it we’re not going to control. Some of it is– I mean, we would maybe like to, but I think if you can set up alternatives, if you can– and this is where the grassroots of the work like Moving the Goalposts and Soccer Without Borders and others– they’re trying to show that there’s an alternative, that you can still have some of the trappings that come with the success that maybe the other elite or professional sports have, but that it can be done in a way where people are– they feel good about their involvement in it. And even if they’re not going to become professional, some of them like Moving the Goalposts– some of them have moved on. The Moving the Goalposts has a team which plays in the Kenyan women’s league and is a step up. If you want to be recognized, then you play with that team that plays in the league against others. But it’s not the only outcome. I think the Mathare Youth Sports Association also had that in Kenya. And they had a men’s side that was actually quite good, and it would get transfer fees and things. But does that– is there something corrupting around that? Ultimately, that’s always the big question with these academies. The Right to Dream Academy in Ghana– they have a girls’ program. I don’t know, I mean, they have a connection with the club in Europe, and I think it’s maybe too soon to see what the outcomes there are. They want to also place their kids in educational schools and things. But it’s a lot, and it’s somewhat of a closed system, the Right to Dream program. But how do you do something in the community and create community soccer?
And one thing that it was fun to discover, and it has become its own mega thing, is the granny’s soccer, which I think is interesting. So we talked a lot about youth but looking at social issues. This started in Limpopo with this woman who knew that her peer group– a lot of them– grandmothers were taking care of grandchildren, and their own children, for whatever reason, were not there. And she started this soccer program for them. And there was– at some point, an American got involved, but I’m not quite sure and wrote a book about it and whatever, and that got a lot of attention. So that’s always one issue too, when you start to hear about things, is it only because the person from the Global North was involved? So this is how to get things at the local level out there. But nevertheless, the granny soccer thing has taken off, and they just had a soccer tournament in South Africa. The next one is going to be in Kenya. And there are people, women coming from all over the world to participate. So I think there are ways that the game can fill in other needs and for other communities, an area that I think in the African continent is begging, and I know some people are involved, but that’s disabled sport, too. It’s hard, there’s a lot of issues in the paralympic movement because of the cost of equipment and things like that. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen power ball, power soccer. It’s fun, but you have to have these fancy chairs to do it. There may be other– there may be other opportunities, different kinds of ways of playing. But we’ve seen the amputee games on the continent, more for boys. I don’t know how many girls might have been participating in that, but it’s a different community.
Caley: Granny soccer is such a good example of– when I’m hearing you talk about this has to come from the community, we have to protect girls and young women who are in these positions, and we have to start thinking about sport in a different way, I think about how much responsibility and pressure that puts on parents and families to understand the system, to understand the sport, to understand who has their child’s best interest at heart. If you have some recruiter coming from the UK who says good things about your kid, there’s a lot that might happen that you previously might not have been comfortable with. So I start to think about how do we build communities, whether it’s in Africa, or in the US, or anywhere, where the understanding of what the goal of sport is really clear. We have supports that demonstrate what you get out of this is more than just the possibility of this insert college scholarship, insert professional deal or whatever. And granny soccer is such a great example of this because I think about– I looked at my phone the other day, and you pin your conversations at the top. Five of the six of the ones in the top of my phone are soccer friends, they’re people that I built relationships with when we were hurt. And between those five conversations, I think there’s probably 17 ACL [Anterior cruciate ligament] surgeries and multiple fake shoulders for all of us goalkeepers. But I think the benefit of that is so clear as I’ve reached my middle age. This is the stuff that lasts, this is the stuff that builds a better place, a better human, a better community. I just don’t know how that happens in effective ways other than continuing to invest in programs like Soccer Without Borders that do this meaningfully and transparently in the way they communicate their goals.
Martha: Yes. I could say, yes. I think, though– and I will say I am an enthusiast around sport, particularly soccer, football, but other sports as well. But I do know that some people are not going to get involved in sports. So in some ways, this is a call to do other things. Some people might like dance, and the question is, is dance a sport or not? And there might be particular moments of time when somebody decided that it was art and not sport, European physical education training, actually, specifically in the 19th century. But it could be art, or I think I mentioned cooking, or they’re automotive mechanics, or different kinds of things which can get you back into sport, I guess, through F1, F2 racing or something. But I think that one thing that– again, the word “intentionality” is really important in organizing. So you’re constantly coming back to the whole person and being willing to pivot, being willing to learn, being willing to take a deep look and saying, OK, well, what are we doing here? And do we need to change something? If we’re losing people along the way or if somehow– I mean, I even think with the ACL injuries, what’s really interesting is, are the studies being done and looking at the boot that the women are wearing? Is that the simple thing? Is that the answer?
Caley: They’re just doing that now.
Martha: I know.
Caley: What are we? Forty years into the sport professionalizing.
Martha: And when you think about the wealthy countries that can maybe afford all these surgeries and the rehabs, if you’re putting boots on kids in countries where they don’t have that access to that, if we could get the right boot, maybe we could save all of these ACL injuries. So there’s so many different ways. Actually, when I was in high school, I was trained as an athletic trainer. And at one point, I was thinking that, well, might be the career, I become a medical doctor and do sports medicine or something. And I didn’t end up doing that, but I got a lot out of working with multiple teams, both boys’ and girls’ teams, the boys’ wrestling team, the girls’ volleyball team, basketball teams when I was in college. And I really know how to tape an ankle.
Caley: That’s a valuable skill.
Ron: Yeah, seriously.
Martha: Yes, and rip that tape. But I think that all these different aspects of the sport, the psychology of it, the diet– there’s different ways of engaging with the sport that can lead into other parts of one’s life. As I was saying earlier, with learning how to organize something, you can apply that in so many different places. But it’s the intentionality. I don’t know. See, that’s my main word today is intentionality, coming back to that.
Ron: Well, and intentionality and also inclusion, which you came back to so many times, how do you make it a place where people are welcome, where people feel– how do you carve out space where space hasn’t been carved before to build that community? For it to have those long-term relationships build out, it has to have the space to meet in the first place and not feel like if you aren’t already great, you aren’t allowed on the field, right?
Martha: Well, when I was visiting Kilifi– and this was back in 2006 or so– there was one young woman there who was working with the organization. She wasn’t really interested in playing soccer, but she got so excited about learning how to drive, and ultimately, somebody who was going to be in charge of the bus that they got. And she was a slight little woman. If you’ve been to Kenya and see the matatu drivers, I don’t think there’s very many women that are matatu drivers. But effectively, that’s what she was going to do, but specifically to be driving the young women there. And so, there’s different roles, there’s different things that people can find to be involved with. And to be part of the team, it’s bigger than just the people on the field or the coach.
Caley: I think intentionality too, when we’re talking about this, I think it’s viewed as this very soft term. But sometimes intentionality can be about just the basic progression of bodily health. And I think about the menstrual cycle studies, everybody in sports has known that the time of the month and the risk for ACL has been associated for decades. And then we’re just now funding studies into this. Well, that’s assuming that those studies continue, I don’t know if they’re still funded or not. But I think this is so– this is the piece of intentionality that we miss, this is actual organization. This is where intentionality becomes real, we have to invest in those pieces, or intentionality is just an idea.
Martha: Yes..
Ron: Intentionality is different than good intentions.
Caley: Yes.
Ron: Very interesting to focus on.
Martha: Yes, good intentions are really problematic sometimes.
Caley: Well, we can’t get out of here without talking about Trump and his new best friend, Gianni Infantino.
Martha: Oh, my goodness.
Caley: We have to talk about it. I just was looking up, I hadn’t had a chance to look at it today, but he did get in trouble for being late to the soccer congress because he was busy chatting it up with Trump, and that there were all these big messages about his, I don’t know, involvement with the Trump administration. So I think my question is about how this is going to change African soccer, even as simple as work visas for African players to come into the US and be part of the NWSL. But I know there’s lots of other ways that this happens, how do you see that now having an impact?
Ron: And just quickly, one of the ways we saw that was professional women’s players not being able to join their national teams in this last international break–
Martha: Yeah, the Zambians didn’t go to– and it was specifically a tournament in China. And so maybe had the tournament been someplace else– I mean, we have students internationally, you probably have this international students who are not leaving the country because they’re afraid they won’t be able to come back in, even if they have a valid visa and all this. So that’s an issue. The idea of having a tournament, a men’s World Cup across three countries– it’s a big deal. I mean, the FIFA’s trying to spread out whatever they have to give to people, and to make everybody happy. For climate change, it’s not a good idea. I mean, I went to the women’s tournament in New Zealand and Australia, that’s a long way to fly across those oceans, i’s a long way. It was wonderful, I had a great time, but still– and I know that they were doing something to buy credits so that– I don’t know, that it made it seem like they somehow were not contributing to climate change as much. But I know that when Trump got elected, I think that– I mean, well, Infantino– he is– I mean, yeah, I used to joke that the Vatican and FIFA were like the mafia. I’m hoping the Vatican is less so now, maybe, I don’t know, between Francis and Leo. But FIFA is still– I mean, they figured out how to make things work for themselves. But they are in charge of much of the game. I mean, it is interesting, there are people that still try to– that do soccer outside, do football outside of FIFA. If anything they do is successful, then FIFA tries to go in and take it over or shut it down. So for Infantino, he wants this tournament to be successful, snd I think there was a lot of concern initially. I was hoping that maybe they’d just cut the United States out and just have Canada and Mexico fly over. But there is a lot invested into it, so, of course, he’s going to make nice. And I think they had to do it in Qatar, they had to do it in Russia, just as the– yeah, so I think that in some ways, you can– I don’t want the practicality of it. You can understand that. Does Trump get it? He doesn’t care about– I mean, if there’s a golf tournament, maybe, but he doesn’t care about soccer per se. Are they going to give visas to players? Are they going to give visas to fans? That’s going to be a huge issue. Or is he going to demand some– and Trump is going to demand something. So I don’t know, yeah, we have to wait and see. But I think– so when the women’s tournament happened in Australia and New Zealand, I don’t know if you remember at one point there was going to be this Saudi campaign for visit Saudi in the middle of it. And people– I don’t know, Moya Dodd– if you know who she is, she’s– Moya Dodd– she’s great. And I ugh, no, shut this down. But a bunch of other people, no way.
Ron: And lot of the players
Martha: Yeah, yeah.
Caley: That was a source of protest.
Martha: Yes, so there is power in the community to at least renegotiate things. But right now, I mean, you may know there’s– Saudi has invested a lot in women’s football there. And they’ve been building up their local and also buying– or bringing in players from abroad, women’s players there. And you’d like to think that that would make them change like a Trojan horse, but they didn’t really– they brought it in, and then all of a sudden, they don’t realize, who they got to put up– they got to become feminist or something. I don’t know. It’s their rules. It’s their money. And with Trump’s visit to– I mean, this is switching gears in some ways, but with his visit to the Gulf, he’s going where– whoever’s going to pay him. So if FIFA is somehow going to make him look good, then he’ll go along with it. But yeah, it’ll be interesting if there will be a point at which they clash and what the resolution is.
Ron: I think that’s a good way of putting it. I think both President Trump and FIFA think in terms of if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, and right now, they’re able to do that. And so the question is, is there a point where their interests no longer align? And then suddenly, there’s a conflict. But as long as the interests align, it works for both sides.
Martha: I mean, Trump could just say, ok, we’re not going to– we don’t like South Africa. We’re not going to let them come in, unless they’re white Afrikaners.
Caley: Yes.
Martha: We’ll have a team, the refugee team, the white Afrikaner refugee team.
Caley: I was almost disappointed that this wasn’t a Women’s World Cup, because I feel like the women have taken on the role of protest in a much more meaningful, powerful way. And I don’t know if the men have either A, the same power, or B, the same motivations, but it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out during the tournament.
Ron: I think I did see just today– actually, I think Dave Zirin was writing about–
Caley: Oh, Dave.
Ron: Oh, Dave. Shout-out to Dave. I think there is a movement to boycott the ’26 World Cup that’s starting to arise now in Europe, but I think especially because of the Trump administration. So we’ll see if that goes anywhere.
Caley: Dave Zirin came here, I had first gotten here– I think it was 2014 or something. And he did a talk in Kane, and I did the– I just asked him questions. I mean, he talked for a while. And people were just rapt. But one of the things that we talked about for a while– at that point in 2014, he was like, soccer is where this voice is going to happen, this is where protest and the kind of pushback that we need is going to happen. I don’t know if he still thinks the same thing, I know he thinks about football a lot. But I was recently thinking I need to call him up and ask, come back. Let’s talk about the World Cup, let’s really get into it.
Martha: Yeah, and it takes people willing to risk things. And I mean, I will say with women in football, they have always been willing, to play football as a woman in many parts of the world has been risky because you– physically, it might be risky, but you also risk people saying all kinds of things about who you are because somehow you’re transgressing. And I think that’s why Beth Packer’s piece on the women in Senegal– they say they internalize that, but they make it part of their pious work with Allah, that they are willing to suffer because it’s important. I don’t know, maybe other people have suffered for the game, too, they’ve had to give up a lot in order to make it. Does that set them up to be willing to protest or not? It depends, and how invested they are in the system as it works.
Ron: So maybe one final question. Martha, I’d love to hear you talk more about how you balance your personal investments with sport, with your scholarly investments. So how does your passion for the sport drive your research and/or vice versa?
Martha: Well, as some people may know, I’ll be retiring soon from my job at the university. And while it’s been a lovely 32 years plus my eight years and another eight years as a PhD student at UC Berkeley, my work has often taken me away from the research just because, there’s just so many details to run a research program, to take care of the students and make sure things happen with a very small staff at a public university where African studies isn’t terribly well funded. So one of the things I look forward to in retirement is actually being able to say, hey, if I want to spend all day going down the rabbit holes– which research to me is often going down rabbit holes. I mean, yes, there’s field research where you have a structured thing, and you’re going to do surveys or interviews or go to archives. So there’s that, especially with sport, there’s so much on the internet, and just to set things up, it takes a while to figure it out. And I could do that if I wanted to. And certainly, over the last 32 years or so, a lot of the work I’ve done has been in the evening and on weekends and things like that, although I would say my job also has given me the opportunity to meet so many people. The African Studies Association, for instance, has supported the Sports Africa group and were– as an organization within the ASA [African Studies Association]. And they give us a lot of help. And so my professional work has been very much with the African Studies Association. And so, my lifelong friends– I have many friends and not just those who work on sport, but a lot of them are the ones who work on sport. And I will forever continue to work with them. And the conference that we just had in Abidjan, the next one that will hopefully be in Cape Town– it is a labor of love in some ways. But it’s important there.
Now, in my personal life, I do watch a lot of soccer. I mentioned it earlier how– for many years, I didn’t have cable, and when I wanted to watch as a single mother, I couldn’t afford it. So this was before streaming services, but I would watch everything over the air. And the World Cup– I would watch it in Spanish because that’s where you could see more games. But now that I have a little more disposable income, I have more streaming services, and so I’m watching, and they keep on changing the deals. It’s like, why can’t they all just use the same one? So I don’t have to buy this– I’m not going to even name the companies, but they have a deal here, they have a deal there, they have a deal here. And so if you want to watch– if you really are addicted and you want to watch all of these games– and so yeah, I guess I don’t watch much TV otherwise, honestly. My granddaughter is learning all about football, and she calls it football. And in fact, when she sees men’s play– when men play, when I’m watching something, she’ll go, women’s football, which reminds me of her father when he was little. So I was playing a lot of soccer then, and I would bring him to the field with me, and we’d go all sorts of different things. And so when he was about three or four years old, he goes, Mommy, do men play soccer? Because he only ever saw women play, and I was like, yes. And he turned out to be a soccer player. But I don’t know. Yeah, it’s a huge investment in that. Another area that I studied was agrarian politics. And I’ve never been a professional farmer or anything like that, but I love gardening. So there are different parts of my being that I’m in retirement going to– I’m also going to garden and do things like that, raise vegetables.
Ron: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time, Martha. It’s been so delightful having you here. Thank you for joining us today, Caley.
Caley: Thank you.
Ron: It’s been amazing to learn from you and hear your insights and your wisdom over the last couple of days. So thank you for being here.
Martha: And I really appreciate what you’re doing up here with the Global Sports Lab, it’s wonderful. Danny, who’s sitting across from us, thank you for making it possible.
Caley: He needs a thumbs-up.
Martha: Yeah, the University of Washington. Way to go, Huskies. Yeah. We have go Bears at Berkeley, do I need to go Huskies here.
Ron: And a “Dubs” [UW Husky mascot] up.
Martha: Dubs up. OK, there we go.
Caley: We got the lingo over here.
Ron: So thank you so much.
Caley: Thank you, Martha.
Ron: And join us for our next episode. Thank you.
Martha: All right.
[MUSIC PLAYING – “Merci Kylian” by Laurent Dubois]
