00:00Oh my God, why is this happening to me right now?
00:04Periods are still a major barrier to girls staying in sport.
00:07My tampon was leaking.
00:09I ran to my coach and asked him, can I please go to the toilet?
00:14He was a little bit confused.
00:16I had to explain to him, I felt ashamed and I had tears in my eyes.
00:23That experience led Joachim to create Period Out,
00:26a signal players could use when they need to leave the pitch because of their period.
00:29You can show it and the referee is like, okay, go.
00:32I don't have to explain a lot.
00:34Football's laws don't explicitly mention periods,
00:37but players can leave the pitch with the ref's permission.
00:39The problem is that many women don't know that.
00:42The main thing was that I didn't know what I'm allowed to do.
00:46I asked 20 players if they know that there is an existing rule.
00:5119 of 20 said no.
00:53For Joachim, the bigger goal is to make periods less taboo in football.
00:56We can break this taboo of the menstruation because we know everybody is bleeding one
01:04times in a month.
01:05It should be a sign of strength.
01:08We can perform and play.
01:11But if periods are still embarrassing for some players, especially young girls,
01:15would they really want to signal publicly that they have their period?
01:18I also thought about maybe that it's not a hand sign for menstruation.
01:24Maybe it could get a hand sign for going on toilets, so also everybody can use it.
01:31The aim is to make periods a normal part of sport with clear guidance and better support,
01:35like England dropping white shorts or Wimbledon allowing players to wear dark undershorts.
01:39It's really important that the culture and the society is changing.
01:45There we have to start to then change the rules.
