Happy FM’s promising sports broadcasting talent and women’s football advocate, Ayishatu Zakaria Ali has booked her place as one of the few journalists from Ghana to cover the elimination round of the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and the 2022 CAF Awards in Morocco.
The versatile journalist will provide a live coverage of the semi-finals and grand finale of the most anticipated women’s tournament and also provide live reports on the prestigious continent awards.
This is not her first rodeo at reporting at international tournaments and pledges to deliver the absolute quality from Morocco.
Additionally, she been selected as one of two Ghanaian representatives to vote in the 2022 Confederation of African Football (CAF) awards taking place in Rabat, Morocco on July 21, 2022.
Ayishatu Zakaria Ali, the force to reckon with in Women’s Football has hosted big guns in the sports industry such as madam Fatma Samoura; FIFA Secretary General; Laura Georges, Her Excellency Dorcas Makgato; Secretary General of the French Football Federation and High Commissioner of the Republic of Botswana to the Commonwealth of Australia, Moonira Ramathula; Chairperson of Futballing Girls NPO, Gauteng Women’s Rugby Institute and 1st Vice-President of the Gauteng Sports Confederation, Jean Sseninde; Director of South Sudan Women Football and South Sudan Football Association, Achta Mahamat; former Director of Legal Affairs and Compliance at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) among others on radio, television and digital platforms.
Her passion for the development and growth of sports has seen her champion a lot of causes for women football with the most recent projects being the ground breaking reportage on Hasaacas Ladies’ FC financial crisis ahead of their CAF Women’s Champions League, WAFU Zone B Qualifiers in Cote D’Ivoire, the neglect of Ghana’s senior Women’s National Team; the Black Queens ahead of the Tokyo 2020 qualifiers and the demonstration by the Black Queens for the payment of bonuses owed them by the state. Interestingly, all these campaigns which she led yielded positive results.
Ayishatu is a 2021 alumni of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) Young Reporters Program in Switzerland after being selected that year as the only Ghanaian to participate in the prestigious program. She is the Player Relations Officer (women’s category) of the Professional Footballers Association of Ghana (PFAG) and served as the Media Officer for the Black Queens in the WAFU Zone B tournament in Ivory Coast in 2019.
A member of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) and a fellow of Women In Football UK; Ayishatu continues to promote women’s football through journalism and covers the Ghana Premier League, the Women’s Premier League as a reporter and panelist on many sports talks shows in Ghana and globally.