In Guinea, football is the most popular sport. Fatoumata is one of the few girls who can kick the ball. She is one of the most valuable talents at the Nongo Academy. For a year, the Guinean Football Federation travelled around the country looking for the best young footballers to join its academy. In all, 25 girls and 50 boys were selected.
At the age of 12, Fatoumata Keita is by far the youngest of the female talents at the Nongo Academy in Conakry, whose vocation is to train the Guinean football elite.
Women in Guinea are trying to make their mark on the field. In this West African country, patriarchal society keeps them tied to the home. At the Nongo Academy, young women footballers are training to become champions. Their goal: to win their freedom.

Promoting gender equality and female emancipation through football is the aim of the Champions project, established since 2021 in Guinea. "We first went t oFouta-Djalon, a very conservative region," says Alhassane II Camara, project manager at Plan International. It wasn't easy, but the more we organised round tables with religious leaders and parents, and mixed matches to reveal the potential of the girls, , the more we have seen a change in mentality."