Every time I bring up football, it would be,
"JJ, please, do not embarrass the family,
football is not going to get you anywhere."
My name is Jawahir Roble, and I am the first female Muslim football referee in the UK.
I was 10 years old when we were forced to leave Somalia. Football kicked in from
day one, from day dot. My family are all football fanatics.
But until you come to the UK you do not
know how big football is. Football here is like a religion,
and I fitted right in. When I was 14,
I got approached by quite a few teams, and they were like, "JJ,
we want you to take this to your parents, get it signed,
and you can come and join our team" I'll take the letters to the parents and then they're like,
"No, we're not signing anything." Every time I bring up football,
it would be, "JJ, please do not embarrass the family. Think about
it, football is not going to get you anywhere."
So there's a cultural reason because Somali girls don't normally play football.
So it was difficult for me to negotiate with my parents.
They were like, "You'd be the first, we're gonna
get a lot of hits. You're going to get a lot of problems, JJ.
People are never going to like you for who you are.
They are gonna judge you. They're gonna probably ask you to
take to take your scarf off . They're gonna ask you to do
a lot of things." And I was like, "No, people do play football
and still look after their culture and religion." Being a sport, they see it as a whole joke.
Like, they belittle...they used to belittle me and use me.
So I play football until, like, high school finished.
So I was...up to 16 I played. So this is me,
I've already accepted that I'm not going to become a footballer
because I did not want to disrespect my parents
to that level where I'm actually signed
for a football team and then they're seeing me somewhere
and they’re like, "JJ, why are you doing this behind our back?"
Like, I did not want any problems.
So, 16, I started doing my coaching badges,
because if I'm not going to make it as a player,
I want to become a decent coach. And then I did that for a bit. One Saturday,
I remember they were like, "JJ, we are a referee down." And they're like,
"Nope, JJ, you know the game and they're little girls.
You'll be fine. Just go for it."
And they gave me so much equipment,
and they gave me a rain jacket because it was raining that day.
I was so scared, I don't know why. During the game,
the little girls would be like...they would stop while they're running, and they're like,
"It's so nice seeing a female referee. We normally don't have
that. We have that old man just refereeing our games."
And then I was like, "Refereeing is actually nice." And then I did 2013,
I completed my refereeing course.
And then I was like, "Hmm, like, you're refereeing." And I spoke to one guy, I said,
"Can refereeing take me somewhere?" And he's like,
"Yeah, it can, y'know. You can be with
top players one day. You can be on the pitch
or you can be part of the game."
And I was like, "That's actually nice." I would say being a Muslim, like visibly Muslim,
Black and female,
I would say, and in a man's game,
and then on top of that I'm a referee, so many forces against me,
but I would say the strongest one is I always get picked
on for being a female. They're like, "You see what I mean, referee,
you don't belong, this is not your thing."
I swear one time I heard one guy say,
he shouted out from a distance, he's like, "Stay in the kitchen!"
I was like, "You can't even cook.
You stay in the kitchen. You need some cooking skills." A lot of people do say that
what I'm doing is not worth it. The abuse I'm getting is not
worth it. Everything that comes with football,
it's not worth it, especially refereeing.
What makes me push on every day is the fact that I actually
love football so much, like I'll give my whole life to football.
That 90 minutes, where else can I get that much happiness? My ultimate goal
is to one day referee in the men's Premier League, women's WSL
and Champions League finals, World Cup finals.
Honestly, just go all the way
and make it happen. Thinking about
it now, I would say my job
at the beginning was just to sign girls in, and then randomly this referee just doesn't turn up,
doesn't turn up for so long. I think it was definitely something to do with the universe
just directing me in the right direction. Do my parents accept me for who
I am? Like, truly, as a human being, I would say "Yes."
I have made the family proud because their fear was,
"JJ is gonna not only make us embarrassed,
she's going to make the whole community embarrassed,
the whole Somali community embarrassed."
But there's more good feedback from the people than bad feedback.
So my parents are like, "OK, JJ, just continue what you're doing."
What advice would I give to my younger self?
I would say, "Work hard."
And when I say work hard, I mean like there's no job
that's easy. So if you pick something that you like, work hard at it
and always have self-belief because,
for example, if everybody else believes in you and you don't believe in yourself,
you're quitting the next day because you don't even know who you are.
You have to believe in yourself and say that you've got this and you're going to make it happen.
You have to give yourself a little pep talk and just make your own dream a reality.