Calling the shots: Becoming a football referee in Nigeria

DW (English)

Meet Nigerian referee Gbemisola Yusuf. She's rewriting the rule book on who decides what's onside in a game dominated by men.

Transcript

00:00In the bustling city of Lagos, amidst loud streets and crowds where many dreams remain

00:06unfulfilled, one young woman defied odds and expectations.

00:10Gemi Sola Youssef, a 21-year-old football referee, turned her dream into reality.

00:15The challenges I face in refereeing is like me officiating among the male players, they

00:23are always like, who is this small girl, who is this girl I want to be controlling also

00:27on the field of play, but I usually tell them that it's not about you being small, it's

00:32about the thing you can do, the ability you have in you.

00:36Breaking into football officiating was never easy, but Gemi Sola never retreated from a

00:41challenge or making the right call, and that includes being in peak physical shape to call

00:47the shots.

00:48What I do to be relevant in the male-dominated field is that early in the morning I go to

00:57training, after my training work, I read the laws of the game, I try to work on myself

01:02and if I do a match a day before my training program, I try to do one or two things that

01:06will help me to improve on what I lack on the field.

01:10I do that in practice, so that next match I'm going to do better and more.

01:17She's not just breaking barriers, but setting a new standard.

01:20And Gemi Sola has impressed her mentors along the way, like Dele Atun.

01:24Mentoring her is very easy because she's very passionate, she's also very disciplined,

01:30I can say that, because you also see the environment she grew up in.

01:34The first thing that stood out for me is the courage, because at that time we didn't have

01:40people that were older than her, we were still training, and they were not courageous to

01:46be in the middle of an officiating, but she came and she wanted to be in charge, even

01:51as a young girl.

01:53Off the pitch, Gemi Sola likes a sharp look.

01:57Her second job as a tailor is to turn fabrics into clothes with style.

02:01This is one of the clothes I just finished sewing.

02:05It is guinea material and it's made of corflins and it's another style of embroidering.

02:14It might be a different pitch, but the skills are transferable and unlike her role as a

02:18referee, here she doesn't need to follow the rulebook.

02:22I apply my referee duties to my tailor work because sometimes when I'm officiating, when

02:27I see a player, his stature, I'll be like, will this design match this player's personalities?

02:35Because there are some players, you'll see them, they are huge, while there are some

02:37players, you'll see them with their minor body, so I'll just be like, will this design

02:41make sense on this person?

02:44With determination, a strong work ethic and a deafness towards naysayers, Gemi Sola quickly

02:49rose through the ranks.

02:51From local games to international tournaments, she proved that skill and determination speak

02:56louder than stereotypes.

02:59My advice to the young girls that want to become a referee and want to go find a referee

03:04officiating is that don't set your limits.

03:07Just keep pushing, keep training, keep reading the laws of the game and don't believe that

03:12you can't do it.

03:13Believe you can do it and surely you'll do it.

03:17When the final whistle blows, most go home.

03:20But Gemi Sola, she's already reviewing game tape to improve.

03:24Don't be girls competition and our referees for today are from Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire

03:30and Togo.

03:31So the centre referee is Youssef Gembi Sola Shiluat, she's from Nigeria.

03:37Her biggest dream is to represent Nigeria as a referee at a FIFA World Cup tournament.

03:42And Gemi Sola's story has made others believe too.

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