Sports

Football: ‘I Had To Strip Naked To Prove I’m A Woman’

Published

9 years ago

February 4, 2015

Genoveva Anonma
was used to the insults. For years, she had shrugged off the suspicions, ignored the accusations.
But what she was not prepared for was the degrading ordeal that followed her starring performance for Equatorial Guinea in the 2008 African Women’s Championship.
Scorer of the winning goal on home soil as her country became the first team other than Nigeria to win the tournament, Anonma should have been savouring the realisation of a dream. Instead she was plunged into a personal nightmare.
As her energetic and powerful performances prompted rival teams to accuse her of being a man, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) chose the crudest of methods to establish Anonma’s gender.
“They asked me to take all my clothes off in front of officials from CAF and the Equatorial Guinea team,” she recalls.
“I was really upset, my morale was low and I was crying. It was totally humiliating, but over time I have got over it.”
Overcoming adversity was nothing new to this most resilient of individuals.
Growing up in Equatorial Guinea – where the 2015 men’s Africa Cup of Nations is holding off on her desire to become a footballer made her an outcast at school, and indeed at home.
“When I was five years old in my village the girls didn’t accept me because I just wanted to play football, so I always used to play with the boys,” says Anonma.
“My dad was living in another city with another woman and my mum didn’t want me to have anything to do with football. She wanted me to study for a Masters, become a teacher, or help children.
“I had some serious problems with her. She told me she didn’t want to see me again.
“Eventually, I went to live with my uncle. He took me to the city so I could carry on studying and playing football.”
Anonma was signed by her local team in the capital city, Malabo, when she was 15 in 2002. After a year in South Africa with Mamelodi Sundowns, she joined FC Jena in the German Bundesliga, where she was the team’s top scorer for two seasons in a row.
However, after Equatorial Guinea’s run to the final of the 2010 African Championship they booked their place at the 2011 Women’s World Cup, and she became embroiled in an all-too-familiar scandal.
Winners Nigeria, along with South Africa and Ghana, accused Guinea of having three men in their team: sisters Salimata and Bilguisa Simpore, as well as the team’s captain, Anonma.
“You only need to have physical contact with them on the pitch to know this [that they are men],” said Ghana defender Diana Amkomah at the time.
As the story made headlines around the world, Anonma faced up to the media to refute the allegations.
“These accusations come because I am fast and strong, but I know that I am definitely a woman,” she said at the time.
Unfulfilled wish
As the row rumbled on into the build-up to the World Cup, Equatorial Guinea sought to defuse the controversy by dropping the Simpore sisters from their squad, although it was never stated that their omission related to gender. And the allegations were never proven.
Anonma, meanwhile, kept her place and scored Equatorial Guinea’s only two goals at the tournament.
To this day, Anonma’s biggest frustration remains that she has never been permitted to undergo medical gender testing in the expectation of silencing her doubters once and for all.
Gender testing in sport
Gender testing is a highly controversial area of scientific debate. There is no perfect method to categorically determine whether someone is a man, a woman or, as is perfectly possible, something in between.
Over the years, sport has tried chromosome testing, individual gene testing and hair testing but all of these techniques carry flaws.
The most high profile case in recent years was that of Caster Semenya. She won the women’s 800m gold for South Africa at the World Athletics Championships in 2009 but was then subjected to an investigation into her gender. She was cleared to compete again in 2010, although the results of her tests were never made public.
“I was hoping they would call me to tell me they were taking me to hospital to do tests, but they never did,” she says.
“They did nothing to me. It was just down to me alone to defend myself, to state that I am not a man, I am a woman.”
A woman good enough to be named African Women’s Footballer of the Year after her goals inspired Equatorial Guinea to their second African Championship in 2012.
And a woman good enough to line up in Germany for Turbine Potsdam, the six-time Bundesliga champions and two-time winners of the European Champions League.
“I think Germany is the best league in Europe,” she says. “There are lots of internationals and big-game players.
“But on a personal level, it’s not easy when you don’t speak German very well. You can’t have many friends or talk to people well.”
Future ambitions
If Anonma hints at homesickness, she is not yet ready to return to Equatorial Guinea, where she is feted as a hero whenever she walks the streets.
Instead, she’s weighing up offers to play in France or Sweden, two other established hubs for women’s football.
Despite the tribulations of her turbulent career, Anonma remains a player at the summit of her powers.

Sheringham writes for BBC Sport

Sam Sheringham

Sports

Siasia Blames NFF Over FIFA Ban

Published

10 hours ago

April 26, 2024

The Tide

Former Super Eagles Coach, Samson Siasia says the Nigeria Football Federation supported FIFA to have him banned for alleged involvement in match-fixing in August 2019.
In a recent interview with Athlist, the 56-year-old, whose ban ends in a few months, said the NFF not only refused to support him but also carried out FIFA’s instruction not to let him know he was under investigation by the world football body.
“Nigeria abandoned me at that time of need; that’s my own take on how this thing played out,” the former Eagles striker and member of the 1994 AFCON-winning squad, said.
“It’s an allegation; they said bribery. What is bribery? Is it not when money changes hands? Was there any proof of that? There were none.
“I spoke with someone who was trying to hire me as a coach in Australia. I didn’t know the guy was a match-fixer, but FIFA knew this guy. Why would they allow him to be around any FIFA tournament?
“So, when they found out through emails, our correspondence about how this guy would take me to Australia, I played in Australia, so I felt it would be nice to go back there.
“We talked about how much salaries, transfers, bonuses, and sign-on fees were, and that was all.
“When FIFA was looking for me, I didn’t even know. I am not affiliated with FIFA; their affiliation is with the NFF. So, they went to the NFF and told them not to let me know that they were investigating me. But if they didn’t tell me, how was I supposed to defend my self Siasia added, “Then they sent me a letter, but it went to my spam. It was two days before the ban that I found out that FIFA was looking for me.
Siasia added, “Then they sent me a letter, but it went to my spam. It was two days before the ban that I found out that FIFA was looking for me.
“Then we started to see how we could communicate with them to see how I could have a hearing. But they said the time had elapsed and I should go to the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport).

Sports

WADA Plans Review Of Failed Tests

Published

10 hours ago

April 26, 2024

The Tide

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will launch an independent review after 23 Chinese swimmers were cleared to compete at the Tokyo Olympics despite testing positive for a banned substance.
WADA has said it was not in a position to disprove an assertion from the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) that contamination was the source of the heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) for which the swimmers tested positive.
Findings of the independent investigation, led by Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier, are expected to be delivered within two months.
“WADA’s integrity and reputation is under attack,” said Wada president Witold Banka.
“WADA has been unfairly accused of bias in favour of China by not appealing the CHINADA case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“We continue to reject the false accusations and we are pleased to be able to put these questions into the hands of an experienced, respected and independent prosecutor.”
United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Chief Executive Travis Tygart said WADA and CHINADA had swept these positives under the carpet, claims WADA described as completely false and defamatory while adding that it had referred the comments to its lawyers.
Aquatics GB said it was extremely concerned by the allegations, which it said threatened “potential loss of trust and reputational damage to sport”.
WADA was notified of CHINADA’s decision in June 2021, ahead of the delayed Games, and said it had no evidence to challenge China’s findings and that external counsel had advised against appealing.
In addition to the independent investigation, WADA said it will send a compliance audit team to assess the state of China’s anti-doping programme and invite independent auditors “from the broader anti-doping community” to join the trip.
WADA director general Olivier Niggli said: “While not one shred of evidence has been presented to support any of the allegations made against WADA, we wish to deal with the matter as quickly and as comprehensively as possible so that the matter is appropriately handled in advance of the upcoming Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Details of the positive tests were revealed by the New York Times, which shared reporting with German broadcaster ARD.
China won six swimming medals at the Tokyo Olympics, including three golds.

Sports

AFN Lists Strong Squad For Bahamas Relays

Published

10 hours ago

April 26, 2024

The Tide

The Athletics Federation of Nigeria has listed Tobi Amusan, Favour Ofili and Omolara Ogunmakinju among the athletes to represent the country at the World Athletics Relays at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium in Nassau on May 4 and 5.
The body shockingly left out Favour Ashe, Nigeria’s fastest man so far this year, who would have helped Nigeria secure a 4x100m slot at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The Auburn University undergraduate has been in great form this outdoor season, breaking 10 seconds twice (9.96 and 9.99).
The 21-year-old was not among the 29 names World Athletics released on Tuesday in the final entry list by Nigeria for the event, and AFN has yet to give reasons for its decision t Meanwhile, Godson Oghenebrume and Udodi Onwuzurike head the list of eight sprinters listed for the men’s 4x100m event.
Others are Alaba Akintola, Karlingthon Anunagba, Consider Ekanem, Seye Ogunlewe and Israel Okon Sunday.
The team will strive to be among the best 14 finishers to secure a lane in Paris for the first time since 2008, when the quartet of Onyeabor Ngwogu, Obinna Metu, Chinedu Oriala, and Uchenna Emedolu did not finish in the first heat of the event at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, China.
For the men’s 4x400m, African Games 400m champion Chidi Okezie headlines the list of eight quarter milers listed to return Nigeria to the Games since 2004, when Godday James led the team to a bronze medal finish in Athens, Greece.
Others are Sikiru Adeyemi, Dubem Amene, Ezekiel Nathaniel and his brother, Samson Nathniel, Dubem Nwanchukwu, Samuel Ogazi, who has been improving since his switch to the University of Alabama and holds the Nigerian U-18 record and Ifeanyi Ojeli.