“I am going to tell you a secret,” says West Ham’s Hawa Cissoko. The France defender is discussing her disciplinary record in the Women’s Super League, a division in which she has been shown three red cards since arriving in 2020. But that hasn’t deterred her from her long-term dream.
She has ambitions to become a referee.
Such a career dream may be unusual for a professional footballer but she says with a determination in her voice: “No top level player in the men’s or women’s game has become a referee. Maybe I can be the first one.”
That career move in the future might seem surprising, for a player who has not exactly been WSL official’s best friend in recent seasons. She was handed the longest ban for a player in WSL history when she received a five-match suspension last season for striking Aston Villa’s Sarah Mayling in the face - a red card that she accepts she deserves - but for many of her other bookings and dismissals, she feels she’s been misunderstood.
She hopes that the experience of playing in the top-flight, shared with other officials, can be a boost for the knowledge-base of the WSL officials, saying: “It would change everything. As players, everyone wants to be a journalist [pundit] or a coach, but I think after my career I would like to become a referee. Maybe it will change my mind [perspective].
“I think some people have made a picture around me as a player that I am aggressive and stuff like that. But if you look, I think I make less fouls than any other defender. Sometimes I finish games and I haven’t made a foul. People have this picture of me but it is not true, I am calm, I can be calm on the pitch!”
Despite fearing she won’t be able to change that perceived narrative around her discipline, the 26-year-old says she won’t stop being true to herself on the pitch, adding: “If I want to change the picture [of me] I have to change my game and if I change the way I play, I won’t be good. I’m fast, I’m strong and I’m powerful. If I stop being me, West Ham are going to rip up my contract and I will be playing Sunday League! I have to stay ‘me’.
“I’m really quite chill and calm. When I go to them I try to be respectful, I speak with a low voice all the time. I have had the same with male and female refs. Once I was tackled and I felt like it was a foul and he didn’t, and I said ‘Hey, ref, this is a foul!’ And he said ‘No, just calm down’. This is not the moment to say ‘calm down’. I think it’s just a misunderstanding between players and referees. I think we just need to speak to them. I will understand them more if I speak to them and they will understand more.”
‘If I turn off my phone, they don’t exist’
Whether or not Cissoko deserved the four yellow cards she received in her 16 WSL appearances last season, one thing is without doubt: Nobody deserves the racist abuse she received online after her dismissal against Villa.
“I didn’t expect it would happen to me, especially when the people that did it don’t even watch our games,” Cissoko said. “If it was from people who follow the league, I would understand a little bit more but when it was from [people who are] not even French or English people I was like ‘You should focus on your own business’. I realised, ‘okay, some people are just racist’ and they just find every opportunity to be racist and say whatever they want.
“When I understood this, it was easier to deal with because at the beginning you take things personally, you think they don’t like you when they see you every week, they hate me, but when I realised it was outside of WSL fans I thought ‘I don’t care’.
“On social media I just ignore people because it is not real. Those people, they can say a lot of things on social media but if they met me they would never say this because they would see I am actually a human with a heart and feelings.
“If I turn off my phone, they don’t exist. The most important thing is the relationships I have with my teammates, my coach and my family.”
That said, the former Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille defender wants to see social media companies do more to clamp down on abusive accounts, adding: “Some people, they send messages because they know that nothing is going to happen. We need more security.”
‘I am a big fan of female managers’
Cissoko is speaking at the launch of the new WSL season, which – for West Ham – begins with a home game against Manchester City on Sunday [15:00 BST]. The game is the first in charge of the East Midlands club for new manager Rehanne Skinner, and Cissoko says she had been hoping to work with the former Tottenham head coach for a while.
“I am a big fan of female managers. When she signed for Tottenham I was looking at her like ‘Oh I would love to have her as a coach’ but I never thought it could happen here at West Ham,” Cissoko added. “Then when she was announced I was excited, but she doesn’t know [that she liked her]! I’m happy. What she is showing at the moment is really good.
“It is the way she sees people. I understand her more than I did some of my previous coaches, not just here at West Ham but all my career. It is about how you speak to people, she really takes the time to understand each player and then it is easier to make connections. I think women understand other women better. The way to interact with women, Skinner knows how to do it because she is one herself.”
After hosting Manchester City, West Ham travel to Brighton & Hove Albion on 8 October before a trip to Chelsea on the following Saturday.
