This story is from Sunday magazine
Los Angeles-based Football Fern Ali Riley has captained the New Zealand’s women’s football team for the past five seasons and is skipper of the glamour club Angel City owned by Natalie Portman. Ahead of this year’s Fifa World Cup she tells Dana Johannsen why she’s not afraid to speak out for what she believes in, on and off the pitch.
For a brief moment in the United States summer of 1999, it felt like time had stopped for Ali Riley.
Crammed into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, among 90,000 others for the final of the 1999 Fifa Women’s World Cup, an 11-year-old Riley could only hold her breath and hope as Brandi Chastain stepped up to take the decisive penalty shot.
A successful strike would secure the US Women’s National Team a historic victory over China.
“I just remember it was so hot - everyone that was there that day still talks about how hot it was - and I was so nervous. It doesn’t get any more dramatic than a penalty shootout and I think the whole stadium just went dead quiet,” the now 35-year-old Riley recalls.
“And then … it just erupted.”
From her vantage point behind the goal, Riley watched it unfold in front of her seemingly in slow motion. Chastain calmly drilled the ball into the back of the net, before whipping off her shirt and twirling it around and then sinking to her knees, pumping her fists in exultant triumph.
What resulted was perhaps the most iconic photograph ever taken of a female athlete, a depiction of pure spontaneous joy.
Riley was among a generation of young American girls for whom that moment ignited something within.
“For me and I think a lot of other young people at that time, we suddenly dreamt about doing something huge with our lives,” says Riley.
Nearly 24 years on, Riley is on the cusp of a “full-circle moment”. The Football Ferns skipper, whose football dreams were inspired by “the 99ers” World Cup triumph in the city she was raised in, is preparing to lead her side in a home World Cup later this year.
Riley hopes the tournament, which New Zealand are co-hosting with Australia, can make a similar impression on Kiwi kids, just as it did for her.
“To be able to see your national team play live in a World Cup, and all these incredible teams and global superstars of the game here in New Zealand, I just really think it will impact so many different generations, for so many different reasons,” says Riley, who is eligible to play for New Zealand through her Kiwi father, John.
“We hope to see more girls either picking up soccer, or staying in soccer and that just bodes so well for what the team could look like in 5-10 years. But also, it has the power to shift perceptions of what women’s sport is about and what women are capable of.”
This month, New Zealand audiences will get a taste of what is to come when the Football Ferns take on the defending world champion US side in two warm-up matches in Wellington and Auckland.
The US are the most successful team in women’s football having won the Fifa World Cup and Olympic Games four times each.
But to Riley, their power comes in what they have achieved off the field, with many of their high profile stars boldly embracing athlete activist roles and speaking up for social justice causes, including LGBTQI+ inclusion and Black Lives Matter.
In 2022 the US women’s national team won a US$24 million (NZ$37m) equal pay settlement against the US Soccer Federation in a legal action stemming back to 2016 and later spearheaded by veteran players Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd.
Inspired by what the US women have achieved, Riley expects players from all nations will take a frontline role in speaking up on social justice issues throughout the World Cup - a stark counterpoint to the men’s Fifa World Cup in Qatar late last year.
“I know the players at this tournament will be speaking out and standing up for issues and causes that are important to them, and that is something that we wish we saw more of at the men’s World Cup, and I think that too will inspire so many people,” says Riley, who will be playing in her fifth World Cup in July.
“I think right now, as we saw in Qatar, so much of what I believe is human rights is being called political and people think it is something we should stay out of as athletes, and I completely disagree.”
Relentless positivity
A player of boundless energy and enthusiasm, Riley has never had a problem finding her voice. She is what you would call a talker.
Her communicative style, emotional intelligence and relentless positivity has seen her earmarked as a leader wherever she has landed in a globe-trotting career.
As a college athlete, she captained the Stanford University team to two National Collegiate Athletic Association semifinals, and one final. It was during her college career that she first got the opportunity to represent New Zealand, having been invited to play for the Under-20 side at the youth World Cup after she sent off a highlights tape to NZ Football. A year later, while still in her teens, Riley was making her debut for the senior side.
While Riley had never lived in New Zealand, she held citizenship since she was a baby. Her father John, a professor of economics, grew up in Christchurch and moved to the US after University, while her mother Beverly is an American of Chinese descent.
Now 35, Riley has played nearly 150 games for New Zealand, captaining the Ferns for the past five seasons.
More recently, she has taken up a position as one of 29 international players on FIFPRO’s Global Player Council, which offers a platform to discuss and influence global regulations, trends and the strategic development of football worldwide.
Riley brings a unique perspective to the role having bounced between clubs in the US, Sweden, where her partner is still based, England and Germany. Covid disruptions saw her return to the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the US to take up a contract in Orlando in 2021, before being traded to Los Angeles-based expansion club Angel City last year.
The nature of the trade system, which gives clubs an intrusive level of control over players, may have irked Riley – being subject to it has left her determined to continue to push to change it – but in the end, it worked out.
Approaching the twilight of her career, she finally had the opportunity to represent her hometown.
The glamour club, which was founded by actress Natalie Portman alongside entrepreneur Julie Uhrman and venture capitalists Kara Nortman and Alexis Ohanian, is rewriting how women’s sport is done.
With a glittering roster of high-profile investors, including Serena Williams, Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria, Gabrielle Union, Uzo Aduba and Jessica Chastain, the team has also generated strong commercial success, pulling in more than US$35 million in sponsorship revenue in its first season.
Riley believes it is what the team stands for off the field that is most valuable, with the team’s vision to leverage sport for social impact. The club is heavily involved with its community, volunteering its time to local charities. When Sunday magazine spoke with Riley just before Christmas, she had spent the day volunteering at a clothing drive for a women’s group, was preparing to help host a senior holiday party at the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
“To be a part of something that is so much bigger than me as a player and so much bigger than soccer, it’s so motivating. When you play for a purpose that is bigger than yourself you end up playing better anyway.
“I waited for this team for so long, and to actually be a part of it, and to be a leader on the team and to be given this platform to represent Asian Americans and to talk about things that are important to me and to not only have a platform at the club, but a sense of protection because my values align with the club’s values.
“It can be a bit daunting as a player to stand alone, or to kneel alone, to speak about important things, and this club, not only does it support us, but it helps us with resources and information.”
The arrival of Angel City came after a very public reckoning for the NWSL in 2021. In a matter of months, five of the league’s 10 head coaches were fired or resigned for off-field conduct, following complaints of discrimination, harassment and abuse.
In that respect Angel City, with its all-women leadership group and strong drive for social change, is seen by many as the antidote to the systemic cultural issues that came to a head in 2021.
But Riley is quick to point out that it is the collective voice of the players, not one club, that has led the revolution.
“I hope we can lead by example, but I think it’s too simple to say that a club that has only played one season is the antidote and it is going to be perfect. The club has the advantage of course of seeing what has been going on in the league and trying to do something different, but other clubs are doing that as well.
“I think [player welfare issues] is happening in so many levels of the game and in so many different countries, but in this league the players were strong enough to stand up and say what was going on and to fight and to push the league to change.
“So really the most credit has to go to the players, and what Angel City is doing right is that they’re listening to their players.”
