PLAY LIKE A GIRL: LEAH WILLIAMSON

Illustrated by Megan Bevis

Footballer Leah Williamson talks female league, dreaming big and fighting the stereotype.

Leah Williamson, 22-years-old, is a professional footballer. Growing up playing football she challenged the strong stereotype of who a footballer is in order to follow her dreams. Leah has played for Arsenal ever since she was signed at its Centre of Excellence when she was only nine- years-old.

Despite women’s football not being classified a professional sport at the time, Leah still pursued it as a career; a gamble that paid off now that she is a Lioness, most recently playing for England in their SheBelievesCup win at the beginning of the year. “I always say that if my career ended tomorrow I would already have enough memories to last me a lifetime and that’s mostly come from playing for the team I have always been a fan of and admired,” said Leah, reflecting on her past thirteen years at Arsenal. Her love for the team has stemmed from her mothers side of the family who are all die-hard Gooners and have supported Leah from youth football to Arsenal’s first team squad.

“I always loved playing even just as a hobby. When I was 15 I sort of had a choice to make in terms of really making a commitment and sacrificing a lot to make the final jump up and step into a career that was slightly uncertain at the time. But lucky for me the gamble I made to follow my dream led me to being a professional now.”

Leah has already broken down so many boundaries in the early stages of her career. She started playing for England in 2010 and made her first senior team debut in the 2019 FIFA World Cup Qualifier two years ago. “Playing for my country is the hugest honour and to have even put on that shirt already gives me goosebumps at the thought,” described Leah. But the young footballer isn’t only influential on the pitch as she is also dominating women’s sportswear as the face of many Nike campaigns. Last year she had her first solo campaign for the new Nike Air Max1 range, which includes exclusive colour ways for women and was shot by an all-female team.

Leah puts her dedication down to the advice she was given as a young girl, “I always say the same thing and it’s what I was told when I was a little girl: Dream big! Find what you enjoy doing and don’t stop doing it. Work hard because absolutely nothing worth having comes easy and then you’ll find your feet.”

As a female athlete, Leah still experiences the negativity that she has faced her whole life as a girl who plays football. “All the time, when I was younger, playing with the boys upset parents mostly that there was a girl playing football just as good as the boys. Now it’s more men’s fans that think we shouldn’t be playing football at all. We receive all types of comments on social media but that’s just the nature of the world we live in unfortunately.” But the sport is evolving everyday in an attempt to achieve gender equality for female athletes, particularly in football.

Up until last year women’s football was not even considered a professional sport, meaning that the players weren’t being paid a proper wage –– nothing compared to their male counterparts. A survey conducted in 2017 revealed that 88% of women in the top league earned less than £18,000 a year, most of them having to maintain a second job while training for their team. Starting September 2018, the FA ruled that the top league female football teams would have to pay their players a professional salary and treat them the same as male footballers. Top league teams include Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea, Birmingham, Liverpool and more.

“We have certainly seen a massively positive shift in the way we are seen or portrayed in the media but there is still a long way to go,” said Leah, acknowledging the still plain difference in the treatment of men’s football and women’s football. “Obviously it will be a little-by-little journey and making the league professional is 100% an unbelievable step, but we continue to fight every day to raise the bar for the female footballers and athletes in general.”

The most recent shift in women’s football towards more equal opportunities happened in March of this year when Barclays announced itself as the first ever title sponsor of the Women’s Super League. The three year partnership has been deemed the “biggest ever investment in UK women’s sport by a brand” by The Football Association. The sponsorship, which is worth in excess of £10m, will start next season with the competition being renamed the Barclays FA Women’s Super League. The news is a moment for celebration for female footballers as a major brand finally invests in them, highlighting the teams and its players as both serious and professional athletes. Leah reflects on the latest developments but makes it clear that the biggest step is to normalise female football, “The thing is you have to be realistic and there is no point trying to compare us to the men, but it should at least be totally normal now to see a woman playing football and it’s not yet.”

Despite still only being early on in her already impressive and inspiring career, Leah has played a huge role in women’s football. With over 100,000 followers on Instagram, being the face of Nike campaigns and playing for her home club and country, Leah is a major inspiration for many young girls hoping to follow their dreams in a career seen as being only for boys. But what advice would she give? “If any woman is determined enough to fight the stereotype then I don’t think they need much advice from me because they already must have the character. It needs to be little-by-little gains and just keep doing your thing. The more we have women stepping out and playing sport then the more normal it becomes.”