Embracing the true spirit of football

AT a fund raiser in aid of a domestic abuse charity, in between performances from Alison Moyet, Tracy Thorn and Caitlin Moran, it was interesting to hear the experiences of a transgender woman who had used the services of the charity while fleeing not just the horrors of violence in the home, but violence against her from wider society – from catcalls to punches to ridicule, her transition had not been smooth.

Meanwhile, on the radio, there was an interview with Jaiyah Saelua, from the world’s least successful football team, American Samoa. This is the team who suffered the worst FIFA World Cup qualifying defeat in history – 31-0 defeat at the hands of Australia in 2001.

Yet despite this unsurpassed inability to win anything, the American Samoa team love football so much that they just keep playing – and are the subject of a film, Next Goal Wins, released on May 7. The film makers travelled to the tiny island – population 55,000 – because they wanted to make a film about the true spirit of football. Not a Jose Mourinho in sight.

Anyway, what links the trans woman at the charity fundraiser and the American Samoan footballer Jaiyah Saelua is that Saelua is a member of Samoan society’s third gender. She is a fa’afafine. Fa’fafine means ‘in the manner of a woman’, and Saelua is the first out trans footballer in the history of football. This is what she told an American interviewer about her gender: “There are responsibilities within the community and the family, such as being able to organise events, funerals, weddings. And making sure you know how to do female and male jobs in the household. There’s an association — the Society of Fa’afafine in American Samoa, or SOFIAS. Every year they do a fundraiser, and proceeds are split between a home for the elderly run by the Catholic Church and a children’s ward at the hospital.”

Being a member of American Samoa’s third gender is not a problem. It is regarded as normal, with 80% of families supporting their male children if they display non-masculine behaviour.

On April 15, the Supreme Court of India granted legal recognition to India’s ‘third gender’ – Indian fa’fafine are known as hijras, and fulfil a similar social role, but within a far more conservative society. Fa’afafines like Jayiah Saelua get to play international football, no matter how unsuccessfully, because their entire society supports them.

Back in cultured, civilised, grown-up Europe, we have racist football supporters throwing bananas at the Brazilian player Dani Alves (who coolly, elegantly, ate the banana on pitch). Imagine if he were Daniella Alves.

No, I can’t either. We are still some way behind American Samoa in our gender politics.