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I have been playing soccer since I was eight-years-old. I am now 21, and I opted to stop playing soccer for Rhodes University in my third year. This was the first time I spent more than a month not playing the sport I love since I started in grade two. It was possibly one of the most painful decisions I have ever had to make. I am guessing you want to know why.
An article on The Daily Vox about how poorly our sportswomen are paid and treated in South Africa prompted me to contribute to this narrative.
The fact of the matter is that I was tired. I was tired of dealing with inefficiency, a huge deficiency in support, corruption, a lack of seriousness, and overall uninspiring attitudes. The Sport Administration staff of Rhodes did nothing but let our team down time after time, displaying that our team - the Women’s First Soccer Team - basically only exists because they are required to offer soccer to women as well as the men. As a result my team became tired too. They were convinced they were not worth the time of the administrators, and this ultimately rubbed off on them. This exhausted me - I thought, as Vice Captain, I could inspire these girls to commit themselves and show Sport Admin that we deserve to be taken seriously, but I was overwhelmed by the powers that be. “Team spirit is not of our concern here,” I was told by the Head of Sport admin. Contractual agreements and money seemed to be the only things of real importance by the people in control of the future of our team.
It was not difficult to please us. It was not difficult to boost our confidence and convince us that people had faith in us, that we were supported in every way possible. We are a bunch of bubbly girls wanting to grow in a sport, and ultimately grow as individuals, as the results of a strong team normally are. But the sad reality is that there was nothing to unify us, not even a damn uniform. At the beginning of 2015, we paid R200 out of our own pockets for tracksuits, training kit, and match kit, all branded under the purple emblem of Rhodes University. Even playing local teams from Grahamstown that practice in the township arrived to our home games in matching uniforms, which automatically boosted how we perceived them. We were excited that we were going to be perceived in the same way, sometime in the near future.
After several meetings with both the Head of Sport Admin and the Head of Rhodes Sport, our eagerly-awaited for outfits never arrived. We were told that, during the June/July USSA tournaments, there was a women’s team that needed uniforms and our new kit was the only one available, and so it was given to them and we were promised it would be returned. By around September of last year, when the season was about to come to a close, we were told we were not going to receive our kit because orders with the kit sponsors had been misplaced. Instead, the only thing that could be done was a refund of each person who paid for new kit. Whilst there were no significant losses in a financial sense, we had lost hope that we were going to be treated as a legitimate sports team that had invested time and energy into becoming better. So that, one day, we would be turning the heads of our chief sports administrators who are presumably in their positions because they have a passion for sport, too. From these experiences, it became evident that the women’s soccer team was not part of this passion.
It is now 2016 and in the most important part of the soccer season with the Intervarsity tournament. I did not play soccer for the first half of the year because I could not deal with more heartbreak - I was too angry and had lost my patience in potentially dealing with the same problems that we had faced the two years before. A few people said to me last year: “Well why don’t you just quit?” And I don’t think they realised how difficult that was for me. I have lived and breathed soccer for 12 years with no break in between - I even had prospects of going to the USA on a soccer scholarship to pursue my dream that many told me was unrealistic. Quitting, no matter where I was playing in the world, was simply not an option. But I eventually came to a crossroads in my life at the end of last year, where playing soccer at Rhodes was causing more sorrow than joy, and I had to put my happiness first. However, this all changed when I received a message from the current team captain, and my previous team mate, that the team would benefit from my presence again. I was heavily reluctant as I knew what I would be going back to but, like so many other times, my love for the sport took over and made the decision for me.
I have been playing soccer again this term and I am again filled with absolute contentment. No one knows a Gabi without soccer so I guess I can say I feel complete again. But with this comes with the disappointments I knew were already there. Already our team is facing challenges. Our very first game happened on the first Sunday of term, a local league game against our Grahamstown rivals African Connection. I was nervous: I was extremely unfit and had not kicked a ball in seven months, but I was eager to be back on the field. We had often struggled with getting a full team together and still have substitutes, but this time I was pleasantly surprised to see 15 girls arrive on game day. We kept our part of the deal by being on time, warmed up and ready to start playing at 1pm sharp, only to be told that the referee had not arrived. As hosts, we are required to provide a back-up referee. Thankfully, we managed to find one in time, but the official referee assigned to the game never arrived.
Along with these shortfalls are things like facilities that are supposed to exist for university sports. I have yet to play a match at Rhodes where an ambulance has been present for any injuries. This aside, we are lucky if we even have water bottles to hydrate us at half time. Our kit is completely mismatched with a whole array of sizes for shirts and shorts, meaning that you might be wearing number 11 but your shorts will be number three. Although no one is there to fuss about matching kit, one can’t help but feel slightly embarrassed. How are we supposed to earn the respect and support of people if we can’t even have kit that is uniform? It is just another small example in this melting pot of big problems.
Regardless, I will continue to indulge in playing this sport while I am still young and have the option. I can get as angry as I want about how unfairly we are treated, but nothing will stop the happiness I feel when I have a ball between my feet. It is important, however, that these inequalities are rectified: Is it because we are women? I doubt we will ever know the answers. Higher powers will continue to be apathetic and oblivious to the problems we face as female sportspeople, because it probably doesn’t suit them to be otherwise. There needs to be a complete uprooting of structures in universities such as Rhodes to allow an inclusive space for gender transformation in sport. Do people not see how the victory of the Springboks in 1995 unified the country? Why can equal spaces for women not do the same thing?
One may now ask: what is it like for a woman and a soccer player to exist as one person in our country?
The answer is as simple as: this brand, this genre, this kind of person does nothing but exist. This person does not thrive. This person does not grow. This person is not supported. This person just exists.
