The world of sports is a multibillion-dollar industry, with athletes at its core. They are the people fans root for and even fight for, both on and off the playing field.
Many athletes are denied basic rights and protection despite their talent and fame. They face exploitation, mistreatment, and a lack of representation, leaving them vulnerable to abuse. From payment collection to athlete welfare, there is a long list of problems in the sporting world, and change is overdue.
But there are champions for change, like this week’s #MCNWorkLife subject, Debola Adebanjo, fighting to level the playing field regarding athletes’ rights. As the Campaign Manager and Internal Communications Manager for the global football union, Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPRO), she is one of the people spearheading a global movement for the rights of footballers.
Let’s explore Debola’s journey and the impact she’s making in the pursuit of justice and equality in sports.
If someone else had to describe you, what would the person say?
They will describe me as an optimist, as someone who is very independent, and a go-getter. I am someone who, once I set my mind to something, I make sure I get it done.
For instance, I just learned how to swim in my 30s, and I was very determined to do this before my birthday last October. That’s a life skill you cannot acquire if you’re not driven enough.
What was your childhood dream job, and how does it translate to your current role?
That’s an interesting question. When I was younger, probably around seven, I wanted to be an astronaut because one of my elder cousins told me that the Moon rotates around the Earth and people live on the Moon, stuff like that. I got pretty fascinated with the Moon. I started to read books on astronomy and planets.
I discovered quickly that the astronaut career path was not happening. My next idea was to be a newscaster because I would watch people read the news on TV, and I liked that. My father also made me read a lot of books.
I didn’t know it then, but I slowly gained a unique interest in things around the media through these actions. We had just gotten cable TV and GSM at the time. One of my most vivid childhood memories is from the time of the Afghanistan War, when my father would regularly call our home’s GSM line from his office, anxiously seeking updates on the latest news from CNN—specifically, the number of bombs the US had dropped on Afghanistan that day. I was just a 10-year-old who shouldn’t bother herself with these things, but my dad wanted me to be aware of what was happening in the world, which I would be forever grateful for.
I also started listening to the radio; radio had just gotten a big resurgence, with the likes of Cool FM springing up. I knew then that I would like to work in the media somehow. It was a desire that stayed with me even though I went to study Medicine in my first year of college (we all know how Nigerian parents want their kids to be in the top five professions: law, medicine, engineering, finance, and accounting.) I studied medicine and microbiology for five years (part of which was an extra year), and as soon as I finished, I found my way back to media.
Please walk us through your career journey since school
I had just finished my exams and hadn’t even enlisted in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) yet, but I started writing proposals. I felt that if I was going to walk into these radio stations, I needed to show them something. One of the proposals was to host a book club, as I had listened to something similar on UNILAG FM back then. The other was to host an alternative music show. I loved rock music then, and I still do.
I drafted my proposals, which turned out to be 15 pages long (when, in reality, they only needed three to four pages), bound them, and walked into five radio stations in Lagos Mainland. I timed my visits strategically on days when I knew my favourite presenters would be on their shift so that I could at least communicate with them.
On day one of my “job hunting,” someone wanted me to do a recorded version of my radio show, which was great. I dropped off two copies of my proposals everywhere and saved the best for last. One of the sports presenters at the last station sounded my age, and I felt I could build a better rapport with him. When I got there, I said I was looking for this man, like we were friends, but interestingly, he knew me because he always saw my tweets on Arsenal. He referred to me as my previous username, “Mrs. Robin Van Persie,” the name of an Arsenal player at the time. He offered me a vacant slot he had on the sports show that day, and I did the one-hour show.
Back then, I didn’t even know a lot of sports; I was just heavy on football. However, I could contribute reasonably to the conversation because I had that “presenter’s aura” from listening to a lot of radio. He told me to return after the show that day, and I did. That was how I kept coming back to Top Radio 90.9FM.
After a month, someone who worked for SuperSports asked if I wanted to work at Smooth FM. I moved to Smooth FM and did some freelance gigs around there. There was a phase when I had to go for NYSC, but someone familiar with my work called me and said Inspiration FM was looking to expand their sports team. I interviewed during my NYSC year and got the job.
That was how I got my first official job working in radio with significantly higher pay than my freelance gigs. I didn’t exactly want to be a sports presenter. I wanted to be the on-air presenter who typically spoke about everything, interviewed people, and was pretty much an “Oprah Winfrey.” But sports was how I got into radio, and taking it made sense.
At Inspiration FM, I was able to skill up and explore other non-sports interests, but I also developed an interest in knowing more about the people behind the sports I was covering and commenting on weekly. I wanted to know more about the athletes turning up day in and day out on the field.
My stint at Inspiration FM lasted for a year as I made an abrupt but brave decision to leave owing to the toxic and hostile environment in the team I was working in, but I spent the next six months working other gigs and started exploring those human interest stories I wanted to do surrounding the athletes on my own. I made a website that covered local league games and wrote about the stadium and fan atmosphere.
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I remember doing a story on Mountain of Fire and Miracles Football Club’s (MFM FC) ground at Agege, where they regularly hosted games. Coincidentally, a lot of planes flew over the stadium because of the proximity of the airport, and people loved taking their kids to both see the games and watch the planes. I wrote about that—the feeling, the music, the chants, everything. I also extended my reportage to the Nigerian Men’s National Team. I was working a social media marketing job then, so I would use my salary from there to travel to cover these games, speak to the players if I was lucky, or speak with a parent to know how the player’s career started.
One of my notable interviews was with Alex Iwobi’s father, who is Jay Jay Okocha’s nephew. I remember shooting that video and uploading it on YouTube, where it garnered about 30,000 views, which was a lot back then. That was how I honed my storytelling skills.
I also started podcasting, which was rare at the time. I also got the gig to create some podcast content for the local league. To also get the semblance of a full-time presenter experience, I partnered with Pulse to do a weekly sports recap show.
Eventually, the BBC came to Lagos, and I decided to apply with my stash of content. They were impressed with what I had done for myself without a full-time job. I was shortlisted for three of the four roles and got employed as the researcher in the team. At the BBC, I started to work closely with these athletes and understand the policies and other things that affect them. I could tell their stories holistically with depth, which is what the BBC stands for.
“We only see athletes during the 90 minutes and them looking pretty on social media and the post-match interview, but we never really know their struggles. This was something I was passionate about covering.”
At BBC, I spoke to kid athletes, which made some of my successful stories; I unearthed some talents, made a lot of connections, and continued covering the Super Eagles. At BBC, I became more interested in helping to improve their lives than just reporting. Yes, telling stories helps, but it’s one part of the picture.
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With that desire in mind, I applied for a sports management program- the FIFA Masters program which is the Number 1 European Sports Management Program at the end of 2020. To be honest, I applied for the masters programme because it was just on my bucket list, I did not know if it was going to help me make a difference in athletes lives. It brings me to my earlier conversation about me doing the things I set my heart to.
I also registered my podcast production company, Story INN, around this time so I was open to anything and everything in that period. I was also hoping The FIFA Masters Program will give me an opportunity to travel because it is run in three different countries: the UK, Italy and Switzerland, but I did not know if it was going to bring me closer to my goals, I just wanted the experience it brings and fulfill something I promised myself I would try to do.
This Masters program started in September 2021, I learnt a great deal, traveled to places I had never been, made friends and colleagues from places like Mongolia or Uzbekistan that I might never go to. We had a lot of field visits to places like FIFA, UEFA, Wimbledon, clubs like Manchester United or Leicester City which was one of my favourite part of the programme.
It was one of the biggest risks I had taken on myself, especially because I was not guaranteed a visa to continue to explore the big world of sports I had suddenly been exposed to in Europe, but I was fine with that and I was sure the knowledge will work for me anyway.
Fast forward to July 2022, I finished my Masters and I started working for FIFPRO two weeks after.
What was the journey into FIFPRO like?
Thanks to my Masters, I gained more knowledge in understanding the nuances of stakeholder relationships within the football industry and their interests —from clubs, broadcasters, FIFA, to the athletes – which gave me confidence to apply to various organizations.
I applied for a role as the Campaign and Internal Communications Manager opening at FIFPRO. It sounds like a fancy title, but a day in my life is pretty much around communication, content and storytelling except that I am doing this from a policy point of view.
For instance, if I were to write a story on an athlete winning a medal, I would write more about the conditions surrounding the athlete winning the medal than the event itself. Did they get enough rest? Did they wear the right apparel? Are they playing too many matches? Things like this.
I would say FIFPRO is special in the sense that you cannot do the job if you don’t believe in the values of defending athletes rights and fairness for all. The issues are one you need to primarily believe in. FIFPRO was in line with my career background, personal beliefs and with my Masters dissertation also around athlete’s activism, I was able to convince the organization that I was a right fit for the environment and the job.
I moved to Amsterdam to begin the role and it’s been two years since.
In practical terms, how does FIFPRO help enforce these policies and fight for athletes’ rights?
So FIFPRO has 66 member unions across the world, and these member unions are national player unions in different countries defending the rights of players in these regions. FIFPRO is like the parent body guiding and helping these national unions to do their work to the best of their abilities by providing funding, research, and other resources. The unions also feed into FIFPROs work because we get to understand how things work in different regions, and how different cultures affect certain different policy perceptions.
What are some of your highlights at FIFPRO so far?
The first campaign I worked on as soon as I joined FIFPRO was ahead of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, where we aimed to achieve equality in the FIFA Senior World Cups. Sarah Gregorious, who is a former footballer for New Zealand and now former Director Director of Global Policy & Strategic Relations for Women’s Football at FIFPRO, led this great idea, she thought that FIFPRO bringing FIFA to the table with the players to dialogue on how they can achieve equal pay, get better conditions at Women’s World Cup could indeed create change and it did.
My role as Campaigns Manager came from a media and information dissemination aspect, around how to capture the right message to the audience, so it becomes not just the vision of the players and FIFPRO but every stakeholder involved and ultimately get FIFA to acknowledge and implement the vision of the players.
It was a really interesting campaign because we got over 150 international women footballers to sign a letter written by FIFPRO. It was during this campaign that I personally realized just how big the disparity was between men and women’s football conditions. We know that prize money in football is not equal and there are lots of debates about that but there were other conditions around travel, accommodation, logistics that were unequal, things I thought were basic requirements and should not be happening.
This was something I first had to understand to guide the messaging and what the campaign really was hoping to achieve. It was also an interesting learning curve for me as I was eager to disseminate this information, put these disparities at the front of the conversation but learnt that dialogue is a much more complicated process. But finally as FIFA started leaning into our demands, the narrative of the campaign also shifted as we needed to maintain this was the work of the players and FIFPRO amongst other things, and all of that was just an interesting process to work on and navigate.
In the end, we did not get the equal prize money, but we got a 300% increase from 30 to 110 million dollars. Personally, I think it’s still not enough and it should be equal to the mens. But our demands on other things like the equal conditions were met. The women flew in business class to the World Cup, stayed in single rooms, better camps, which means they didn’t have to move around too much between training and games and be stressed and more importantly, they got a share of the prize money, with each player getting a minimum of $30,000 to their pockets. For qualifying to the round of 16, which the Nigeria national team did, the girls individually got about sixty thousand dollars. I mean taxes happened to maybe they went home with less, but for a female footballer, that is insane money because she probably doesn’t end up with $50,000 in three years as a salary.
Nigeria, for instance—are not part of the FIFPRO network because we do not have a union registered to the union, but I am happy it was something they benefited from by being at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Would you say non-payment of athletes is a global problem, or only in Nigeria?
FIFPRO has a brilliant legal team that handles cases of contracts and unpaid salaries, to name a few. I remember speaking to a Nigerian player named Nigeria, Raphael Ayagwa, who went viral after the officials of a club in Egypt physically assaulted him and seized his passport. FIFPRO was able to file a case on his behalf with the relevant authorities. The club was then mandated to pay the rest of his salary. He was able to legally terminate his contract with the club for how they treated him, and they still had to pay for those damages.
Sadly, this happens to thousands of footballers worldwide, especially in continents like Africa and Asia. Sometimes, my colleagues at the office get WhatsApp messages from players in need. Sometimes, we do little things like help them book a flight back home because they don’t have money to representing them in court against a bad employer.
So let’s talk more about our home nation, Nigeria and its women footballers. There have been several issues in the past of the Super Falcons not being payed, or owed salaries. What is the FIFPRO stance on this?
Well, FIFPRO doesn’t stand for any player anywhere in the world not getting paid. One thing I can say I am proud of is bringing the Super Falcons closer to FIFPRO in the build-up to the 2023 World Cup, especially knowing about the changes coming to the World Cup. Thankfully, the players are now represented by FIFPRO. If you remember, before the Women’s World Cup, some players talked about being owed money from previous competitions as far back as 2021.
So, we were not happy about the fact that they were still being owed some bonuses and some payments for some matches. Myself, Roy Vermeer, Director for Legal at FIFPRO and Sarah got into a meeting to understand what was happening and chart the next step forward, and at the end of the day, we were able to get all 23 players to sign that they wanted FIFPRO to represent them. FIFPRO are currently representing the players in arbitration with the NFF to ensure these backlog gets paid, in the agreed time as well as facilitate binding agreements where the players have a minimum standard contract of the conditions they expect from NFF when they get called up to represent their country. For instance, you can’t travel long distances in economy class and play 6 hours later as we have seen happen to these players before. We want to enforce that they are treated fairly, good standards are upheld and more importantly implement a legal binding contract between the NFF and the Women’s National team.
We are hoping for a favourable outcome of course and I think that is so far one of my proudest wins so far, that these women were able to stand together, speak in one voice to try to achieve these goals. There is simply strength in numbers.
I know that if it were just one person saying this, the person could receive backlash for their actions. Case in point, former striker, Desire Oparonozie. In the past, 2 players could easily be replaced, but it’s harder to bully or work against 23 players all aligned on the same goal or outcome.
Debola Adebanjo with popular Super Falcons player, Rasheedat Ajibade via Debola Adebanjo
What are your hobbies and interests?
I love travelling, and listening to podcasts. I also like fashion and looking good. I enjoy my gym time, especially when I am doing my Pilates workouts. I also like expressing myself with my personal Instagram story, and people have said they love viewing my story because of this.
If there was a misconception about you as a woman in sports, what would that be?
First up, people think that all I want to do is talk about sports. I already work in sports 24/7 as a full time job, and trust me, I do not want to talk about it in my free time. People also feel that women are only included in sports to fill gender or diversity quotas and not as a result of competence.
Even though there are cultural barriers that have significantly limited women for a long time, that doesn’t mean that we have not caught up and are bringing something different to the industry.
It’s time for us to accept that women are the future of sports.
What are some work-life tips that you swear by?
I will be honest and say I am still seeking a work-life balance. But if there’s a tip I can give anybody still trying to figure it out: it gets easier as you get better. You also need to accept the phases that you are in. There will be times when your work demands more. You just need to stay afloat in those periods because there’ll be another phase where your work doesn’t want that much of you, and then you can find the flexibility to do what you want. So, it’s about paying attention to your phase and trying your best to make healthy choices for those periods.
