Monika Staab, 64, former coach of Saudi Arabia
In August 2021, Monika Staab was appointed the first ever coach of the new Saudi womens soccer team. For years the former midfielder has fought for gender equality in soccer in countries around the world. This kingdom in the desert is her latest challenge.Growing up in the 1960s near Frankfurt, Germany, Staab was a tomboy, playing street soccer with boys from the age of four. There were no girls teams; in fact, football for females was banned in Germany until 1970, when, incredibly, at age 11, Staab earned a spot on an adult womens team. We couldnt get a pitch until 9:30 p.m. I wouldnt get home until 11, and the next morning Id go to work at 5 at my parents bakery. Then Id go to school at 7.At age 18, Staab moved to London to play for Queens Park Rangers, supporting herself by cleaning hotel rooms. (In those days, not only were players not paid by the club, they even had to pay to use the pitch.) After stints with Southampton and Paris Saint-Germain, in 1984 she returned to Germany to play, where not only was she still not paid, she and her teammates frequently endured sexist comments by some of the male players.Fortunately, attitudes in her home country started to change in 2003, when Germany won the Womens World Cup. Staab was by then manager of the team now called Eintracht Frankfurt. After steering it to multiple victories, in 2007 she had a new mission: travelling the world to help develop womens soccer and improve womens lives. To date, she has run programs in 86 countries.At a school soccer project in The Gambia, girls who often missed out on an education to help at home started coming back to the classroom. In Cambodia Staab trained female victims of human trafficking. For an hour or two they could play and forget all their sorrow, she says. She fervently believes soccer can empower women to become agents of change in society. Football is more than a game. It teaches you respect, tolerance, fair play, communication, how to work as a team.So in 2020, when the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) asked Staab to run its first professional coaching course for women, she agreed. Nine months later, she was named manager of the newly created national team.She has sensed huge enthusiasm for womens soccer in the kingdom, especially since 2019 when the SAFF created a womens soccer department, allowing women to play professionally for the first time. She saw men and women watching live soccer matches together and girls being given the right to play sports in school. There are now two womens domestic leagues involving 25 clubs.Staab, who lives in Riyadh (she says “training in 40-degree heat keeps you young), has guided the national team to four victories and two draws in their first seven international matches. In February this year, she was promoted to national technical director, overseeing further development of the female game in the kingdom. (Rosa Lappi-Seppl, a Finn, is now the teams coach.)This spring, plans for Saudi Arabias state tourism authority to sponsor this summers Womens World Cup were dropped by FIFA after organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch argued Saudi Arabia is using womens soccer to give gloss to the countrys image and distract from its poor human rights record.Monika Staab, for her part, stays focused on the game. I am not the King, she says. I am here for womens football. These girls deserve to play the game as much as men do.