The referee. As the civil war raged for years in Somalia a football mad girl, Jawahir, fled with her family to England and, more particularly, to Wembley. In the shadow of that famous stadium she dreamed of only one thing - football - but a Muslim girl in a headscarf isn't supposed to play football, is she? This is a girl who won't take "no" for an answer and has broken boundaries to become the first female Muslim referee in the UK and she has much more she wants to achieve from here ...
This is JJ's story.
This episode has been produced in partnership with our sponsor, Body Mind Performance. BMP, run by Emily Tillman, is a coaching company focused on helping young athletes with the mental and physical challenges of playing competitive football.
For more information about BMP visit:
https://www.bodymindperformance.org/ or find them on Instagram: bodymindperformance_
Please do support us on Patreon - patreon.com/footballjourneys. For just £2 a month you can help fund the production of these episodes. You will also get early access to episodes, ad free content and benefits and content that non-Patreons don't get.