We Kick: Riga’s Cosmopolitan Revolution (Justin Whalley interview)

Riga United head coach Justin Whalley recounts how a single 2014 enquiry from Norwegian player Marit Gjerde produced, within an hour, a training session that more than twenty women attended. With backing from Nina Travkina, head of the women’s game in Latvia, the club registered the country’s first multicultural women’s side, lost their first cup tie three-one to Liepaja before around 150 people, were invited straight into the Premier League and finished fourth, with Ieva Bidermane named Latvian player of the year. The squad carries twelve nationalities, cored on Latvian, Norwegian and German players, and Whalley sometimes hears five or six languages at once on the team bus. He wants Riga to become the Baltic region’s highest-profile women’s side.