Africa will close the gap – Van Wyk

Women’s football in Africa will close the gap with the rest of the world. These were the sentiments of TotalEnergies CAF WAFCON winning captain, Janine Van Wyk of South Africa.

Van Wyk, who recently announced her retirement from the game spoke to CAFOnline ahead of the start of the CAF Women’s Champions League, Cote d’Ivoire 2023 as excitement builds towards the start of the competition set to take place between 05 – 19 November.

A true servant and stalwart of the African game, Van Wyk shared her dream for African women’s football and how the CAF Women’s Champions League was a step in the right direction by CAF in further developing the future of the women’s game on the continent.

Having developed a successful football career over the years, what do you make of the growth of the women’s game?

I think has been fantastic over the last past few years and it's just been growing in leaps and bounds. We saw the recent Women’s World Cup where stadiums were filled to maximum capacity.

A lot of recognition on social media about women’s football and a lot of players being recognized around the world.

It is fantastic for the younger generation to have female idols. When I started playing, we didn't really have any females to look up to and now there's so many players out there that young players can look up to and that's fantastic. A lot of competitions are being put in place for the woman's game by CAF.

A lot of countries professionalizing woman's football around the world and there's a lot of equal pay and so yeah, it's been amazing to watch the transformation of woman's football over the years.

There's so much more that can be done but baby steps are better than no steps, so I'm happy with that.

You have competed in a number of CAF competitions, where you also went on to being crowned 2022 CAF WAFCON champions – how important is it for women footballers to compete internationally?

Look I mean it's really important for footballers to play at the highest level in a very competitive environment in order to grow. I think competing internationally has really brought that experience to the national teams in Africa which has enhanced the team.

It’s important players get to compete internationally and at the highest level and competitions like the CAF Women’s Champions League afford African players that experience which is beneficial to African football.

With proper structures and professional facilities, we can really get the best out of African women’s football.  

Now looking at the CAF Women’s Champions League, this is another great step taken by CAF in developing the women’s game on the continent – how important is such a competition in the broader context of women’s football?

I think it has been the success so far. I think it was a big thing to happen to African women’s football when the CAF Women’s Champions League was put in place. I know it's very early, it's only the 3rd edition this year that it will be played but it is a positive start.

Hopefully in the near future, we can also get the competition up to 16 teams were more teams have opportunity to play at this level and compete.

But yes, we are just happy that CAF has put this in place for us to compete and to start developing more competitions for woman's football on our continent. I mean on our continent is so fantastic and to see that there's progress being made for the woman's game on our continent is truly encouraging.

We recently had 3 nations qualifying for the knockout stages of the FIFA WWC, what did you make of that achievement by Africa?

I think the African teams really won many hearts out there. Having three teams qualify for the round of 16 is the first time ever that it was done, and it was historic.

You can see that the woman's game in Africa is beginning to rise and it’s fantastic to see that Africa was so well represented at the FIFA Woman's World Cup. I believe in order to close that gap between the African continent and the rest of the world, we need to continue working hard and believing in ourselves.

We are taking steps and getting closer to where we need to be.

Your overall dream and vision for the women’s game in Africa?

My overall dream and vision for football in Africa is that we really have all countries in Africa take woman's football serious in their federations.

We need to actually professionalize the women’s football and play full time to further improve the standard. There's a lot of teams and a lot of players trying to balance full time jobs and playing football.

Facilities also need to improve. It would also be interesting to have internationals come and play in Africa and not just Africans going to play abroad. However, this calls for a lot of investment in African football.