10 March 2025 – Grace Towobola has known she wanted to become a football coach since the age of 12, but in Africa, a continent where fewer than one in 11 coaches are female, she faced an uphill battle. Now, with the support of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s Young Leaders Programme, Towobola is breaking those barriers and empowering women to become football coaches in Nigeria through a dedicated leadership programme.
The barriers Towobola has overcome to achieve that dream are what have provided the inspiration for her IOC Young Leaders project, the Women’s Football Development Initiative (WFDI).
“Social and cultural challenges meant that I didn’t have the opportunity to coach until I went to university,” explains Towobola. “I was lucky to have a scholarship to study abroad, but not many women in Nigeria have that opportunity. I wanted to give more women the chance to become football coaches, and advocate for children to live their sporting dreams; that’s where the idea for the WFDI started.”
Towobola founded the WFDI in 2023 with the support of the IOC Young Leaders Programme, which provides funding and guidance in helping it achieve its three key objectives: promoting female participation in football and sport; using football to encourage women and girls to return to and remain in education in Nigeria; and increasing the number of female football coaches in the country, at both grassroots and professional levels.
After a successful pilot phase last year, the WFDI is working towards these goals through a coach leadership training programme, a series of outreach visits to schools, and ongoing career support for female football coaches.
Fundamentally, we want more girls to see football as a viable career from an early age, and have more female representation in football coaching and leadership. Grace Towobola, IOC Young Leader
By women, for women
Towobola believes that providing women with not just the opportunity but also the belief to pursue careers in football coaching is particularly important. “Economic restraints play a part, but one of the barriers is lack of confidence, and so we include a lot of psychological support in our courses,” she explains. “Even in the Nigerian women’s football league, just seven per cent of the head coaches and managers are female. That’s how difficult it is for women to rise to the top.”
In turn, the lack of female coaches discourages female participation in football. “Female representation is a big issue, and we don’t see enough women doing it. In my state we have about 500 male coaches, but just seven female ones, and there are many issues around gender-based violence and abuse, so parents are reluctant to let their daughters play football,” says Towobola.
We’ve found that when parents see there are female coaches, they allow their children to participate. We need more women advocating for other girls to play, and more people seeing women in the coaching space. Grace Towobola, IOC Young Leader
The support of the IOC Young Leaders Programme is helping Towobola work to achieve that change. “Having the IOC back us has helped us reach places we never could have ordinarily. The sessions with experts helped me refine exactly what I wanted to do and how to do it, and of course the funding helped us actually start the project.”
Providing pathways for female coaches
Last year, the pilot edition of the WFDI provided 85 participants with coach leadership training, alongside engaging around 2,000 young girls through 22 school visits. The welcome event for this year’s cohort is being held in celebration of International Women’s Day.
“This year we are streamlining the programme; fewer participants but concrete impact for aspiring female coaches and players who want to make the transition to coaching,” says Towobola. “We are also looking to employ some of last year’s participants to work in our academy, so that we’re not just training people but offering them a pathway. We want our coaches to have somewhere to put their energy and knowledge.”
In the long term, Towobola is clear about what she hopes that application will achieve. “I want to see a woman from the WFDI coach in both the Nigeria Women’s Football League and the Nigerian Premier Football League – and win it. That’s what I live for – to empower female coaches to get there.”
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IOC Young Leaders Programme contributing to Olympism365 days a year
Launched in 2016, the IOC Young Leaders Programme empowers young people to leverage the power of sport to make a positive difference in their communities. The programme contributes to Olympism365, the IOC’s approach to using sport as an important enabler of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and specifically to Olympism365’s innovation portfolio, which aims to identify, sustain and scale innovative sports-based approaches that deliver concrete impact in targeted communities.
Learn more about the IOC Young Leaders Programme and the Olympism365 strategy.
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With the continued efforts of the IOC, National Olympic Committees, International Federations and Olympism365-driven programmes, more opportunities are being created every day for women and girls to engage in and benefit from sport.
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