Hollywood’s Sound of Gol Basis launched a brand new partnership with Watford FC Girls at Vicarage Highway, to sort out a scarcity of illustration on either side of the Atlantic.
Actress Judy Reyes and director George Valencia – co-founders of the Sound of Gol basis – met with representatives of the local people, supporters of the membership and the Watford ladies’s squad and training workers, to stipulate their goals.
What connects two leisure industries and communities separated by greater than 5,000 miles? Whereas Valencia and Reyes reside in Los Angeles, Valencia is of combined Ecuadorian and Colombia descent and Reyes was born to Dominican immigrants. A decade in the past, they based the Sound of Gol, a basis with a imaginative and prescient of constructing the sport of soccer extra accessible to younger Latina ladies.
Within the US, youth soccer is estimated to generate an estimated USD $4 billion, however success is decided by wealth, making a tangible barrier to participation for a lot of kids of color. In keeping with a US examine, there are roughly 64,000 teaching jobs within the US, 63.6% are at the moment crammed by males; 36.4% by ladies. It’s estimated that lower than 1% of that quantity are Latina ladies working in youth soccer.
It was throughout their work with like-minded non-profit organisations in LA, New Jersey, Colombia, Ecuador and Puerto Rico, that the Sound of Gol founders had been launched to former Watford captain and US males’s nationwide group defender Jay DeMerit.
Seven years in the past, Valencia and Reyes created an animated academic collection that was proven in faculties all through the US, introducing kids to matters starting from sexism and racism, to bullying and incapacity. Upon finishing a ground-breaking LGBTQIA+ episode, the connection already solid with DeMerit led to Watford FC premiering the movie within the UK to their fan teams and media. It was to be the beginning of a relationship which 5 years later, has taken on a brand new dimension.
In spring 2024, two younger Latina ladies travelled from Los Angeles to Hertfordshire to take part in a life-changing alternative. Facilitated by former Watford and Wales striker Helen Ward, now Watford’s Head of Girls’s Soccer, they joined in coaching and training periods beneath the watchful eye of Head Coach Damon Lathrope*, with the purpose of taking the data gained on their go to again to their communities in LA. A video was created of their journey: https://vimeo.com/946428580/61c9263820
In January 2025, Nayelli Barahona and Luzeleno Erazo might be joined by 4 different younger Latina ladies who will fly to England to take part in a bespoke teaching programme organised by way of the partnership. Offering entry and alternative to foster sustainable change sooner or later.
Along with the teaching programme, the partnership already noticed an thrilling reveal on Saturday, with friends at Vicarage Highway launched to a brand new mascot. Designed in LA, the mascot will turn out to be the primary ever devoted to Watford FC Girls, and as of the 2025/26 season, might be ‘bodily’ on-site for each Golden Women house recreation, as a part of new plans to interact soccer followers, each younger and previous alike.
Shorter-term, younger followers of the membership, in addition to kids from Watford’s native faculties and soccer group are being invited to enter a contest to call the brand new mascot, with the identify set to be revealed in January 2025.
The Sound of Gol basis can even be represented on the Watford FC Girls Board. Three people with a mixture of Business, Communications and Content material backgrounds within the sport will convey their expertise and expertise in an advisory capability, because the membership seeks to regain its place within the higher echelons of English ladies’s soccer.
George Valencia – Sound of Gol mentioned: “Within the US there’s something referred to as ‘athletic crimson zoning.’ You don’t cross your line. After we introduced Nayelli and Luzelena to England, they had been 20 years previous, didn’t have a passport and had by no means left the nation. This partnership with Watford gave them a chance they in any other case would by no means have had.”
“Faculty recruitment is targeting a restricted variety of leagues and try-outs are sometimes restricted to those that have the social-economic standing to have the ability to purchase airplane tickets and lodges. Lengthy-term, we need to see a brand new system which will be scaled all through america.”
“We need to encourage our group. We wish extra individuals who look and seems like us to get entangled within the sport. There are not any Latina ladies on the US Girls’s Nationwide Staff.”
“Sooner or later sooner or later, perhaps one of many Latina coaches we convey to Watford from LA will develop a proficient participant who will go to signify Watford. That actually can be the pot of gold on the finish of the rainbow.”
Judy Reyes – Sound of Gol, mentioned: “Every thing we’re and what we do as adults is impressed by somebody in our group who blazed a path for us to comply with. With this partnership with Watford Girls, we need to develop our work and use soccer to create alternative for
ladies of color.”
“A number of People are investing in European soccer golf equipment. George and I by way of Sound of Gol need to transcend cash and sport. We need to drive consciousness of social points, enhance entry to sport for individuals from our group, and create a cross-cultural consciousness of points that face younger ladies on either side of the Atlantic.”
“Within the US we’ve got large points with LGBTQ rights and subsequent month we might have a lady of color as the brand new President of the nation. It is a large second in historical past.”
Helen Ward – Head of Girls’s Soccer, Watford FC, commented: “It was a summer time of change on the membership after we had been relegated from the Girls’s Championship. We not misplaced solely our standing within the soccer pyramid, nevertheless it had an influence on our funds too.”
“I took on a brand new position and I’m very a lot ‘studying by doing.’ The ladies’s group have moved from the Belief to the soccer membership. Now we have common conferences, and the Business and Communications Administrators sit on the Girls’s Board. It’s the primary time that the ladies have had a seat on the desk, and we’re excited to discover new partnerships.”
“This partnership with Sound of Gol is about group. Every thing that’s necessary to us at Watford Girls. I grew up down the highway and Watford is house to me. We now need to develop our personal story as a membership – like by way of the brand new mascot – and get into extra native faculties. We need to develop the membership and develop new partnerships, however solely when these partnerships add worth to the membership.”
Jay DeMerit – former Watford captain added: “Watford is the unique household membership. Once I come again from Vancouver, it’s like being
house. They took me in as a ‘inexperienced’ 22-year-old who arrived in England with only a rucksack, and so they shared the tradition of the sport with me. The tradition is what makes this recreation so particular. It’s not simply wins and losses, nevertheless it’s about displaying up and being a part of a group.
“There was no pathway for me into soccer after I was rising up in Inexperienced Bay, Wisconsin. So, I needed to consider in myself and create my very own journey. I understand how arduous it’s to make it, and I went on to captain Watford and play on the World Cup. I need to use my experiences to help ladies to understand the identical desires that I lived.”
* Damon Lathrope is now the boys’s group Assistant Coach. The present Watford FC Girls Head Coach because the begin of the present season, is Renée Hector.
