According to Nilla Fischer, the Swedish players were forced to reveal their private parts in the middle of the 2011 World Cup.
Is this the start of a new scandal in women’s football? In a book entitled “I didn’t say the half of it” and which is already much talked about in his country and beyond, Nilla Fisher, pillar of the Swedish women’s football team (188 caps), recently denounced the FIFA’s highly controversial methods towards professional female players. In this uncompromising biography, the now 38-year-old veteran looks back on an episode she experienced during the 2011 World Cup in Germany and reveals that she and her teammates were subjected to a genital examination in the sole purpose of verifying whether they were women.
The checks, carried out by a physiotherapist on behalf of the FIFA doctor, were decided after protests from Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana on suspicion of the presence of men in the team. from Equatorial Guinea.
“When I heard about this shocking demand, I fumed. In the middle of a World Cup, FIFA bigwigs wanted us to show our genitals,” says Nilla Fisher. “They told us not to shave ‘there’ for a few days. Then we had to show them to the doctor. Nobody understood, but we were doing what we were told,” detailed the Swedish international who has played in four World Cups and three Olympic tournaments.
In an interview with Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, Fischer detailed the process in more depth. “I figure out what I have to do and quickly pull down my workout pants and underwear at the same time,” she said. “The physio nods and says ‘yup’, then looks at the doctor who is standing with his back to my door. He takes a note and walks down the hall to knock on the next door”.
Asked about her feelings, Fischer said that no player of this level “wants to jeopardize the opportunity to play a World Cup” and that all therefore complied, despite the “strange” and “humiliating” nature of the process. Former Swedish national doctor Mats Börjesson would have confirmed the former Wolfsburg player’s words, giving weight to these revelations, which come a month before the start of the Women’s World Cup (July 20 – Sunday). August 20, 2023), New Zealand and Australia.
According to FIFA rules, it is the responsibility of each participating association to ensure the gender of all female players “by actively investigating any perceived deviation in secondary sex characteristic”. For decades, a mouth test – inexpensive and non-intrusive – has been able to collect DNA from inside the cheek and determine a person’s gender.
