Kim Little and her Arsenal teammate Leah Williamson are reflecting on the role football can play in changing lives. The pair have just left a close to hour-long Zoom call with women and girls in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, the world’s largest such camp for Syrians who have fled the war in their homeland.
“We play football and people watch us, but I think for us, as a club, as a team and as individuals, the societal impact is way more important,” Little says. “That’s more lasting past football. When we retire from playing it’s not just: ‘Oh, I played OK on the pitch, we did this, we won this.’ Imagine if we can look back in five or 10 years’ time, when I’m not playing, and can say we maybe had an impact on ordinary people’s lives to go and study law or travel? I’d take that any day over winning trophies.”
