Women soccer players across Africa are making a name for themselves, despite many challenges.
However, there exists a knowledge gap among the public when it comes to the sport, which in turn affects how it is perceived. Typically, when women’s sports receive coverage, the focus centers on the challenges, rather than players’ exploits on the field. This hinders efforts to build audiences.
Low wages, poor working conditions, sexism and a lack of news coverage and funding are among the obstacles that have obstructed the development of women’s soccer on the continent.
To help raise awareness around the sport, in June 2023 Nigerian journalist Emmanuel Faith, and his colleagues, Cornelius Ashley-Osuzoka and Oyindamola Aje, launched Fervora, a news site focused on women’s soccer in Africa. The initiative started on Medium and now operates on Substack.
Spotlighting women soccer players in Africa
Fervora is a one-stop shop for information about women’s soccer in Africa. The platform tells players' stories and showcases the sport, with excitement.
“There is a gap in journalism when it comes to [coverage of] female soccer players in Africa, especially when compared to their European counterparts,” said Faith. “We wanted to fill this chasm, by spotlighting African women players, their exploits and the impact they are making globally.”
To support its coverage, Fervora collects data about hundreds of professional African players in leagues all around the world.
“Our short-term plan is actually to build visualization out of these things and host it on [our] platform and invite global platforms to actually collaborate with us for accurate data that would inform their storytelling about the African continent,” he said.
Fervora’s coverage
Fervora circulates important facts, celebrates the achievements of African women soccer players, and produces coverage of leagues such as Spain’s Liga F and France’s D1 Arkema. “We realized that African players' performances are underreported and we needed to step in as the bridge bringing women’s soccer players closer to Africans,” said Faith.
During the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, Fevora published a piece after three of the four teams representing Africa made it out of group stage play for the first time in history. In September, the outlet reported a story about the inconsistencies around the Ballon D’Or award honoring the best players on an annual basis. Last October, Fervora wrote about the African teams that would be participating in the Paris Olympics.
“When we started we wanted to just be advocates, the bridge bringing women's soccer closer to Africans, but as we began to tell these stories, we realized that African [women] players' performances are underreported, and we needed to step in,” said Faith.
In February, the Fervora team previewed the Olympic qualifying match between the Super Falcons of Nigeria and Cameroon’s Indomitable Lionesses. In June, the outlet published a deep dive into Malawian star player Tabitha Chawinga’s career, including her many accomplishments and the records she has broken since she was a teenager.
Just last month, Fervora launched a 2023 African Women Football Report, which highlights African players in leagues around the world, how teams from the continent performed in the Women's World Cup, and the biggest stars Africans should know about.
“With Fervora, I have been introduced to a range of players all over Africa making great strides, from the Women’s Super League [in England] to the National Women’s Soccer League [in the U.S.] and even the Spanish and French Leagues,” said Lorrieta Eguaikhide whose soccer fandom was kickstarted after she joined a WhatsApp group Faith created before Fervora’s launch. “During the UEFA Women’s Champions League and World Cup 2023, they spotlighted various African players, we had spaces to discuss and I learned so much.”
Fervora’s future plans
Moving forward, Fervora hopes to utilize data to tell more in-depth stories. “Beyond storytelling, we want to leverage data. We want to tell a lot of exciting stories with data. We have a large dataset that we're looking for human resources to help tell these stories,” says Faith.
Fervora intends to become the first stop for people searching for data-driven information about African women soccer players. It hopes to continue to raise visibility around the sport, and attract global brands like ESPN, BBC, and The Athletic to pick up their coverage.
“For global brands to reach out to us for this very accurate data we are tracking in real-time and ensure they're able to tell very accurate stories about African soccer,” said Faith. “We are looking for investors, we are also looking for investment. We want to tell the stories of African women’s soccer, we want to give visibility to women's soccer in Africa.”
Photo by RF._.studio via Pexels.
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