Invest in female football league to close gender inequality gap, Yakmut tells FG

Alhassan Yakmut, former director-general of the National Sports Commission, says commercialisation of the female football league will address the gender parity in Nigeria.

Yakmut said this on Saturday at the 4th edition of the ‘Women and Sports Dialogue’ organised by FAME Foundation in Abuja.

The sports administrator said the federal government’s investment in the female football league would not only empower women but also set the country up for high economic returns, given the outstanding performance of women in sports.

“The respect they can give a woman when it goes with her being the richest woman is more than when she’s just merely a mother. We need to take advantage of commercialisation of women football to ensure that the woman gender is financially empowered. With that empowerment you can contest at any level of business and politics,” Yakmut said.

“I would also say that the Nigerian female football league should look at qualitative officiating and also government should seed a good percentage of government funds to serve as start-up capital for all the clubs.

“Margaret Thatcher tried that in 1980. She gave 200m pounds to the English premier league and now the return of investment in the English premier league is related much higher than any mining industry. So, you touch the league in England, you’re touching the economic health of that country and that is what we can re-create in Nigeria.”

‘INJUSTICE AGAINST WOMEN IN SPORTS’

Choice Okoro, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Pakistan, said sportswomen are often paid less and exploited more than their counterparts.

She described the situation as unjust and called for more efforts to drive fairness for women.

“We are fully aware that in the arena of sports, women are paid less. In as much as we celebrate women in sports, we have to face the fact that the sporting arena is one area where women are undermined and mistreated. You hear of the billions that men earn in sports, how many women have you heard earning that?” Okoro asked.

“It is also very clear that injustice plays out in sports against women – basketball, football, you name it – women are underpaid and exploited. And that is a concept we see in other sectors. The space still needs to be adjusted. We have our work cut out for us.”

On her part, Aderonke Ogunleye-Bello, executive director of FAME Foundation, said although women in the Nigerian sports ecosystem had been treated unfairly, actions can be taken to improve the outcome in the long run.

She added that the foundation was on course to mentoring young female athletes and providing them with opportunities to enhance their sports careers.

“Our plan is to mentor these upcoming female athletes because mentorship is key in life and that is why we’re here with retired athletes to share their experiences so the young girls can be motivated,” she said.

“They’ll not only share wins but also their mistakes and how they corrected them. No effort will be wasted.”