South Africa’s women’s team, nicknamed Banyana Banyana, play Sweden in the first event of the Rio Games as the football tournament kicks off two days before Friday’s opening ceremony.
For South Africa, it is a second successive appearance at the Olympics, which for women is played at full international level and marks another step in the progress of the game.
But it has been no easy road and the women’s game in Africa continues to struggle for acceptance.
"It’s not something that brings in any income, it doesn’t attract big sponsors, it’s a costly exercise and, especially in Africa to travel to play international matches is outrageously expensive,” said Fran Hilton Smith, the head of women’s football at the South African Football Association, said. "It’s difficult for African women’s teams to compete. It really, really is." South Africa’s women football has only thrived, she says, since FIFA began dictating that 20 percent of the annual grant it gives to each member association be used for the funding of the women’s game. Twenty years ago, when the team was in its infancy, they were forced to use the cast off clothing of the men’s team.
“We had no support at all. They used to give us shirts with the men’s player’s names on the back and hand-me-down track suits,” Hilton-Smith told Reuters. Traditional societal attitudes also discouraged women from playing and even when those attitudes softened, there were other obstacles, she said. "It’s been a struggle over time. It’s still tough to change attitudes. Parents did not want girls to play football because there was no future in the game. But now they have the chance to get scholarships to university and after these Games I’m sure a lot of this team are going to be snapped up by professional teams in Europe and the U.S..” South Africa have yet to qualify for a Women’s World Cup.
But after competing at the London Games four years ago there was an upturn for the image of the women’s game and Hilton-Smith says she expects the same after Rio.
“Our women’s football has grown in leaps and bounds because of the profile created by the last Olympics. We are absolutely convinced Rio will do the same.”
(Editing by Alison Williams)
