Asisat Oshoala interview: Bay FC and Nigeria star on breaking the Usage Gap, living with tech bros and her parents being her biggest obstacle in football
In this exclusive interview with Sky Sports, Bay FC forward and Nigeria international Asisat Oshoala discusses being discouraged from playing football by her own parents and how she wants to help others get the chance - by connecting them with the world
Monday 17 March 2025 17:08, UK
"This is a different world," Asisat Oshoala tells Sky Sports. "I literally live in a tech city. In San Jose, almost all of the biggest tech companies in the world have their headquarters here. I live with these tech bros and tech women, they are everywhere."
It has been some journey for Oshoala, this 30-year-old Nigerian, once of Liverpool and Arsenal before going on to stardom with Barcelona, the first African woman to win the Champions League. Now playing for Bay FC, her focus is on giving back.
"It would be crazy to be around these people and not find opportunities to help people back home," she explains.
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As well as the foundation in her name, her off-field focus now is on her ambassadorial role for the GSMA - an industry organisation representing the global mobile ecosystem. The aim is to break the Usage Gap - over three billion people who could access the internet but do not.
"It is limiting the strength of Africa right now and I think this is a huge, huge problem. The governments are not paying attention to these things because they think it is not big. They think it is just the internet, it is just social media. But it is not. It is innovation.
"It is going to be a disaster for me not to find an opportunity in the Bay Area to take back home to help some of these kids, to help them achieve their dream or just give them hope for the future. It is going to be a disaster for me." Her passion is obvious.
It stems from the knowledge that all this, from that initial move to Liverpool to the century of goals with Barcelona, could easily not have happened. Communication opened up the world for Oshoala after being top scorer at the U20 World Cup in 2014.
"It is the perfect example. I met my agent on the internet, where I shared my clips, and they took me abroad. They accessed me through my Facebook account. I have friends in that squad who no longer play. They were unable to take their careers forward.
"There were a lot of people who were talented and could not make it to the level I had the opportunity to reach. Some of them had no access to phones, no way to connect with the world. Here, we have TikTok videos, people posting about their careers.
"There are people where I come from who just do not have access to these things. This is not something I read about, I experienced it. It could easily not have happened for me. It was one contact on one platform and it changed my live. I am a living example of it."
Even before then, right from the start, her future career hung by a thread. Football did not seem a viable option for Oshoala as a young girl growing up in Nigeria. Not just as a career but even as a leisure activity. Her father, a dominant figure, did not approve.
"My parents were my biggest obstacle," Oshoala recalls. "They did not want me to play. I usually just played with boys on the street, on the concrete grounds, all of that, or on the beach or something just for fun. They scolded me, kind of stopped me every time."
A key moment was happening upon a women's team having a training session. "I went for a run and someone just came up to me and was like, oh, there are some girls playing at the field next to us. I am like, are you joking or something? Women playing football?
"I was shocked. I did not even know there were proper female clubs existing at all. I just left him and started playing. I took a shirt and when the coach saw me he was like, you have to join our team. I told him, if my parents hear about this, they are going to kill me.
"It was not until after the U20 World Cup, when I came back, that my dad, who I feared the most in my family, gave me the option to play professionally, basically. He told me I was good enough. From the moment that he said yes everything else was secondary.
"He told me to go for it. I felt like I was in a different world when he said that to me. You know, that is the same person who scolded me, who I ran from when I played soccer with my friends. They would tell me he is coming and I would have to run away."
Oshoala wants to ensure other young girls are not deterred as she was. Her work for her foundation includes meeting with parents to reassure them that football can be a help not a hinderance. "I cannot promise them much but I can tell them my story," she says.
"The girls are doing well. They have different stories. Some have supportive families, others have families like mine. I know how to handle these people, how to convince the parents. I tell them that they will do the work but we need them to come to practice.
"All the girls in my academy, I make sure they go to school, I make sure they are educated because I do not want to preach leaving education just because you want to play sports. I am preaching playing sports and education at the same time."
Financial support is there for some. "We cannot fund all the kids because we do not have the money but we try to take the burden off the parents." And open the world for these youngsters. "Some people cannot even write their own CV," Oshoala explains.
"It is simple to people who know how to do it but it might not be simple to them. They see it as complex. These are the kind of things you want to eradicate. These are the kind of opportunities you want to give to the young girls in society these days."
What is striking throughout the conversation is just how seriously Oshoala takes her responsibility as a role model. Some pay lip service to this. For her, it is a creed. "I believe I am built differently. I am built to help generations to come. This is me."
She adds: "I am not going to sign a contract with betting companies. I know that kids look up to me. I do not want them going in that direction. I am never going to take that, no matter how many millions are offered. These are my values. I know who I am."
And Oshoala knows what she wants to achieve.
"If you can teach one kid, they can teach their parents, their siblings, their whole family. "Incredible things are going to happen in Africa when they have these opportunities because there are so many talented people there. It is going to be a different world."
Oshoala reflects on that world she sees around her in San Jose, the mind wandering to the possibilities. "When you go to the mall here, to coffee shops, you get free wi-fi," she says, laughing to herself. "It is just about access. I believe crazy things will happen."
