WSM is the Region's First Women's Sports Management Agency

Women’s football is booming around the world, and yet in the Middle East, the path to the pro scene is rife with uncertainties. Women’s Sports Management (WSM) is the only agency of its kind across the entire region dedicated to clearing the way for up-and-coming female athletes who can bend it with the best of them.

“Female athletes don’t have access to the correct guidance here, and often don’t know what steps to take,” founder Mariam Hesham tells #CairoScene. “We need to give girls a chance like boys get, even if it's only 10 percent as much.” 

Seasoned footballers in their own right, Hesham and her long-time friend Samia Adam went on to study sports management abroad to help other girls avoid the same pitfalls they had to overcome. Before starting WSM together, Hesham worked in a management agency owned by an ex-Real Madrid scout, and Adam worked at D1 Football.

“Nobody wants to help girls because it doesn't bring in as much money due to a huge wage gap in sports,” Hesham says. “But Samia and I do have that know-how, and we want to help young girls reach their fullest potential.”

Although it only recently kicked off in October 2020, WSM swiftly secured a trial in a Barcelona club for one of their girls, just two weeks after she signed with them. The agency focuses on sending their athletes - most of whom are teens - on sports scholarships overseas so they can play and study simultaneously.