LONDON: FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura said she encountered sexism and racism when she took over the job, with some in soccer opposed to a “black woman” taking a senior post at the global governing body. The 55-year-old Senegalese was the first woman to hold a senior role at FIFA when she took over from Jerome Valcke, who was sacked in January 2016 as part of the fall-out from the corruption scandal. Samoura said she had “broken the glass ceiling” in a “male-dominated organisation”. “There are people who don’t think that a black woman should be leading. It’s sometimes as simple as that,” Samoura told the BBC. “It is something we are fighting on daily basis on pitch – I don’t want any racist person around me.” Published in Daily Times, May 27th 2018.