Women's football is a relatively new idea in Uganda but attitudes are beginning to change

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It is early on a Thursday morning at Soroti district’s main football stadium. Two teenage girls are practising their football skills with the Aleluya Ladies football club. Dribble with the left. Faster, faster. Now dribble with the right. Thigh the ball and pass it.

The club is based in Soroti town, about 20km from the sub-county of Katine, where the Guardian and Barclays are funding a development project implemented by Amref.

Daniel Emaru, 29, is the coach at Aleluya; Aisha Atim, 18, and Lucy Inotu, 13, are the only players in attendance. Other team mates are either still at school or spending the holidays with relatives in the surrounding villages.

These two girls are lucky to be allowed to play. Women’s football is a relatively new idea in Uganda and in this rural region it is still frowned upon.

Of the district’s 30 registered and active football clubs, barely five are women’s clubs.

“Culturally and traditionally, society has a negative attitude towards women playing football. People also do not want to see women dressed in shorts in the name of playing football,” says Nelson Odeke, chairman of the Soroti District Football Association (SODFA).

As a result, very few women ever try to play the game.

These cultural sensitivities are why women will not be competing in the Katine 09 football tournament, being held in the region next month. The tournament will be a way to mobilise people in this post-conflict region, which has suffered civil war and insurgency over the past 20 years. Girls will be offered a separate programme of sports events.

Striker/defender Atim, midfielder Inotu and coach Emaru clearly belong to the future. As a young girl, Atim played football locally and made balls with boys in her neighbourhood, but it was not until last year, while in year three at secondary school, that she started properly playing football.

“My primary school only played netball and I did not like netball; I missed football,” she says. Her secondary school, Olila high, is one of a dozen now playing football in Soroti district. Each year, schools compete in a tournament and the winner represents the district at a national competition.

This year, however, the district winner, St Mary’s Madera, did not travel to the national event, citing lack of money, another indication of the gap between men’s and women’s football. While the national schools football tournament for boys has been sponsored by Coca-Cola for years, the girls’ event has no sponsor.

But the biggest issue is still cultural expectations and girls like Atim and Inotu need support from their parents if they want to play. Many parents still see football as a sport for boys.

Inotu, the youngest in a family of two boys and two girls, has been particularly encouraged by her brothers, with whom she started playing as a child. Her parents have followed suit. “They all tell me that I should continue playing,” says Inotu, who wishes she had football boots and a ball of her own to practise with.

Emaru, also the school coach at Inotu’s Bethany comprehensive girls’ school, started the Aleluya club for women last year. He says he has had to explain to parents the potential benefits of playing football to get girls to play. Girls could, for example, land a scholarship if they are good at the game.

“Some parents are not yet used to the idea of their daughters playing football; but others have allowed their daughters to play” says Emaru, who runs a barber shop in Soroti town. He has become the face of women’s football in the district. Last year, at the invitation of the Ugandan Women’s Football Association (UWFA), he attended a football coaching course in the capital, Kampala, organised by the British Council.

But attitudes towards football could be about to change, and the Katine 09 football tournament could act as a catalyst.

SODFA is encouraging more girls’ schools to play the game. And, on a national scale, UWFA has launched a girls’ league in schools across Uganda. It has already created teams in more than 140 schools in Kampala and has Soroti in its sights as it widens the initiative out to 14 municipalities across the country.

Florence Nkalubo, the association’s chairwoman, says that compared to other districts Soroti has already shown potential as an area that could champion girls football in schools across Uganda.

“As an association we are really pushing the game in schools,” she says. “We see it as essential in helping Uganda reach Millennium Development Goal three which is all about equal opportunities for all.”

“There are still many very restrictive cultural norms about girls participating in physical activities, why we wanted to start a girls football league was to try and challenge these norms.”

The Guardian

This story is filed under: Sports

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