Zineb Rechiche – A rare female FIFA football agent in the Arab world
As women’s football continues to explode in popularity worldwide, female players are getting more exposure than ever before, while sponsors and investors are also pouring resources into the sport. This stratospheric growth has also prompted more women to be involved in the men’s game, with club officials and TV analysts among those positions that are no longer quite so male-dominated.
One aspect of both the men’s and women’s game has not quite caught up, however: Football agents across the globe are predominantly still men.
This is certainly the case in the Gulf’s two biggest football nations. The list of FIFA-registered agents of Saudi and Emirati nationality includes no women, though there is at least one female intermediary operating in the region.
After playing professionally for almost two decades and representing the Morocco national team, Zineb Rechiche decided to become a FIFA agent after hanging up her boots in 2023.
It felt like a natural step given that Rechiche had spent the majority of her career working in business roles for General Electric alongside playing football – moving around the world with the company, depending on where the latest transfer took her.
The final club side of her playing career was Abu Dhabi Country Club and it was in the UAE that she decided to launch her new football agency, representing both male and female players.
“I was thinking about how I wanted to add value to the football industry,” Rechiche explains to Al Arabiya English. “I had this financial background with GE so the business side appealed to me more than the coaching side. I had lots of team-mates coming to me and asking for advice and I saw that there was no female representation in that space of advisers and agents.
“The day I went to take my FIFA exam, I opened the door, and it was just a room full of men. This told me that I had made the right decision. Football is still male dominated among the big clubs and big entities and it needs to change.
“Now, I am advising clubs and federations on their strategy and at the same time I am also working with players to help them with their careers in the men’s and women’s side of the game.”
The latter role is one that Rechiche loves because she never had an agent during her formative years as a player. She was the architect of her own career initially, contacting clubs to arrange trials and making her own way in the game. This self-determination took her first from her childhood home in Rabat to Paris and then later to the United States and the UAE too.
“I had to build my own career and although I managed to reach the milestones, I set myself – playing in Spain and the United States – I would have loved to have someone fighting my corner at the early stages, which is usually the most challenging. Now I have my own network of contacts across the globe and I want to guide others.
“I think knowing the game is super important as an agent because it means I can understand what my players are going through. I see them as part of my team and this approach is central for me – when you first meet people when they are 16, 17, 18 and hopefully then spend 16 years helping them through a professional career, you want to feel as though you are in it together.”
Just like when she was a player, Rechiche is hoping that she can be a role model for other women who might want to enter the football industry. She points to Rafaela Pimenta, the Brazilian ‘super-agent’ who inherited Mina Raiola’s renowned company after his death, as one of the few females making a major impact in the field.
“Rafaela is still definitely an exception,” Rechiche says. “She came into that sphere because she was working with Raiola’s agency and took over. If you look across the biggest agencies and even the smallest ones, it’s very rare to see women agents. This is why I was inspired to try this profession.
“I have already had young ladies reaching out, or sometimes their parents asking about how they could take their daughter forward in their career. Now I am trying to move some players in different markets, and I think having an international background has helped me tremendously.”
Rechiche’s former club Abu Dhabi CC is currently playing in the inaugural season of the AFC Women’s Champions League – after beating reigning Saudi champion Al Nassr in the qualifiers. The Moroccan agent believes it will now only be a matter of time before players in Asia are spotted and taken to Europe and North America, where both the money and prestige are centered at the club level of women’s football.
“The new AFC Women’s Champions League starting this year is a big step and we’ll soon have the first FIFA Women’s Club World Cup soon too,” Rechiche says. “On the back of this I am sure we will start to see more players moving away from Asia.
“Coverage of the Asian market has been almost non-existent previously but we saw how the UEFA Champions League had helped put women’s football center stage and if it happens in Asia too, that will be very exciting.
“Of course, I hope that I can play a role one day in helping an Arab player from this region make a life-changing transfer to one of the big leagues in Spain or England.”
Rechiche has seen interest in the Saudi men’s and women’s leagues grow since Cristiano Ronaldo led an influx of major stars to the Kingdom 18 months ago.
“Right now, I am supporting clubs in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to identify global talent but of course I love to see any woman shine and break barriers,” Rechiche says. “The Middle East and Asian markets are at an early stage of development, but I am always on the lookout for Arab talent.
“The foundation is stronger at the league level right now in the UAE because it has been established for longer. But it has not been a smooth road, and these are the challenges that now face Saudi Arabia; building up grassroots football at the same time as encouraging professionalization. It takes time.”
Rechiche describes the current women’s football landscape in Saudi Arabia as at its “seeding” stage, but she is optimistic that once it begins to bear fruit, she will be on hand to help players with the next steps in their journey.
“When you have a league that is not having the same visibility as others, the role of an agent becomes even more important – to help showcase their capabilities for other clubs around the world. I’d like to be the one to build this bridge between football in the Gulf and Europe.”
