Ana Maye, feminine management in an Africa that vetoes ladies

Ana Cristina Maye has been combating for years to pave the best way for all African ladies. She emigrated from Equatorial Guinea to Spain when she was solely eight years outdated. Right here she grew up and was educated till she determined to return to her origins to advertise soccer and girls’s management in Africa.

Right now she is the overall coordinator of the Federation of Equatorial Guinea. A managerial place that isn’t all the time favored within the circles of energy in sure international locations: “The commonest factor is that they have a look at me and ask me: ‘The place is your boss?’ After which she answered them: ‘I am the boss’. Different occasions they only do not even have a look at me, they ignore me. However I all the time persist as a result of I do not do it for myself, I do it for many who come after me”, she defined to Mundo Deportivo, at whose II Girls’s Soccer Gala she is going to act as ambassador this Monday (6pm, Outdated Damm Manufacturing unit).

And it’s that in a big a part of the African continent, women nonetheless have this area vetoed: “I journey all through Africa and see international locations the place a lady can’t even contact a ball. She is tremendous dangerous. There’s a cultural ingrain that women ought to marry and have youngsters, nothing extra. That’s your position in life. I do not even work anymore, I simply dedicate myself to the house. This nonetheless occurs in lots of locations in Africa”, she admits sadly.

Maye grew up in Spain, practising soccer with a normality that she now fights for in Africa. He knew that to vary belongings you needed to work onerous, so he graduated in Sports activities Regulation, received his FIFA agent’s license and labored for the Spanish Soccer Federation. Till he felt the decision of his homeland: “Then I believed: if Africa wants us, even when I’ve grown up right here, I’ll contribute my information and my profession to my nation of origin.”

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And he received all the way down to work till he reached one of many highest positions within the Federation of Equatorial Guinea, though they do not all the time make it straightforward for him: “Typically I enter a spot and see the rejection of the opposite administrators. They reject you with their eyes, with a non-verbal language. I research the tradition of a rustic earlier than touring and if crucial I cowl my hair with a shawl, however I demand that they communicate to me”, he maintains. “Soccer continues to be very masculinized, however the energy of ladies needs to be famous. If they might allow us to, we may do far more. Why not?”, the Equatoguinean ventures.

Along with Ana Maye, ambassador of the 2nd Girls’s Soccer Gala of Mundo Deportivo, dozens of ladies, footballers, managers… from the world of sport will parade this Monday. A celebration wherein FC Barcelona might be acknowledged with a particular award for having damaged the world file for attendance at a ladies’s soccer match final season. The Camp Nou opened its doorways on March 30 for the quarterfinals of the Champions League in opposition to Actual Madrid, filling up with 91,553 spectators. A month later, within the subsequent spherical in opposition to Wolfsburg, the file could be damaged once more with 91,648 spectators, which till now could be the most effective entrance on the earth to a ladies’s match.

Mundo Deportivo may even distribute one other eight trophies to acknowledge essentially the most excellent soccer gamers. The legend trophy, which final 12 months went to the historic German footballer, now answerable for ladies’s soccer at UEFA, Nadine Kessler; It is going to be determined between Birgit Prinz, Nadine Angerer and Lotta Schelin.

The prize for the promising soccer participant might be disputed by Karna Solskjaer, daughter of the legendary Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Manchester United participant; Carla Camacho (Actual Madrid), Hanna Ulrika Bennison (Everton) and Júlia Bartel (FC Barcelona), who this 12 months have been proclaimed champions of the Underneath-20 World and Underneath-19 Europe.

And the most effective purpose of the season may even be chosen, a class wherein two Barça gamers are nominated. Claudia Pina, for her purpose in opposition to Alavés final season; Salma Paralluelo for the cannon shot that pierced Sandra Paños’ purpose when the striker was taking part in for Villarreal; and the nice purpose of the English Alessia Russo with a heel in opposition to Sweden within the semifinal of the final European Championship.