Isabelle Yacoubou, Beninese by origin, naturalised French, former basketball international, captain of the France team, Olympic vice-champion in London in 2012, has  published Géante, an autobiography, published  on February 16, 2023  by Archipel editions, presented in Cotonou on July 28, 2023. As a teenager, she left Benin for France, with dreams in her head. At 37 years old, with a rich track record, in France, Italy and Spain and currently in Tarbes, Isabelle Yacoubou speaks to Dialogue Migration.

Last February, you launched a book, why did you choose this option?

I admit that literature was not necessarily a goal for me. I just want to write. I don’t think I’m a writer at heart, but I’m getting to a point in my life where you have to take stock. It’s almost the end. I have just signed my last employment contract when I return to my training club in Tarbes.  I signed there for 5 years. The goal is to play for two years during which I will pass my coaching diplomas and the next three years I will join the technical staff as an assistant coach. My goal is to pass on everything I’ve experienced during my career. That doesn’t mean you have to do what I do. However, I think that today’s young people can learn from my story. As you know, when you go to a library, you are inspired by other people’s stories. I found it interesting to pay tribute to the people who have helped me during my journey, “guardian angels” as I like to call them.

Then, I want to show young people that even if you come from Africa where you don’t have a lot of optimal infrastructure to succeed in a career, especially in sports, it is still possible to succeed and perform. It’s been possible for me, it’s already been done, so they can do it too.

Is that the kind of message you want to send through this book?

Absolutely, I do it through my passion which is basketball. I’m a training coach. I am also a TV consultant under contract with France television where I comment on the matches of the France team, whether it is the Euro this summer or the Olympic Games next year. I have already worked with Canal+ as a consultant. I have a passion for basketball that knows no bounds, and I love what I do and basketball so much that I can’t limit myself to one role. So yes, I’m a player and a consultant commentator, and soon to be a coach. Basketball allows me to transmit the values I have.

One feels this is the end for a new beginning…

Yes absolutely, it’s the end of the career. But I don’t see it as a small death. For me, it’s really a transition, because when you talk about death, you talk about stopping, and I think I’m more of an evolution.

I think I’m in transition, and that transition today is going well. I keep basketball and its values that have taken me to the highest level in my heart, which I would like to share as a black woman and a mother at that.

With your book, you have recalled your life journey. That of this teenager who left her country Benin to conquer stars in France. How did you experience this episode, from being an African from “nothing” to becoming the kind of star you are today?

In life, there are things that can’t be explained. I think it’s fate, I was born for it. I like to say that I am an instrument of God and I go where He needs me. I am one of his soldiers. I’m here to share, and I think that’s what I’ve done the most. That’s what people will remember me about at the end of my career.  I brought love because that’s really the only thing I’m interested in. I brought smiles because when I was playing, for me it was more than a game, I was really trying to bring happiness to people because when you pay and you get a ticket to come and watch a game, it’s because you want to be entertained, you want to see something that brings you joy; and I hope I’ve brought some into people’s lives. For me, this is my ultimate mission. I’m going to try today to bring this in a different way since I won’t be on the pitch anymore, hence everything I’m doing.

You’ll still be on the field if you become a coach…

Exactly, but I’m no longer a front-row actress, as they say. You know, the role of the coach is really very special because they have to be the person who will take the athlete where they don’t even think they are able to go. But if the coach fails, it’s their fault, and coaches often have this responsibility to develop people. Beyond basketball, what is of interest to me is to develop human beings with values because basketball, for me, has been a way to develop myself individually.

You are presented more as a French woman than a Beninese, what does it do to you since in your career you have done practically everything in the team of France?  On the Western side, you are presented as a Frenchwoman.

I like to say that I am a child of the world. I feel more Beninese because that’s where my roots are. But I feel entirely French when I hear the national anthem and it reminds me of all the medals I won for France, I cannot remove it. And then again, the history with France, it was not me who started it in the family. It has been around for three generations. My great-grandfather fought in the war for France, as a veteran, so there is a relationship with France that is filial and has been in my family for a long time. Afterwards, I lived in Italy not for so long, only for 6 years, but I now speak Italian fluently, it’s a culture that I have adopted. I love Italy; whenever I have a holiday and I can go to Italy, I go there, I dream in Italian. So, I feel as Italian as Beninese as I do as a French. So you see, I’m a child of the world and I enrich myself with the cultures I want, I don’t like to fit into boxes. I hate to be put in boxes, because I don’t think it’s necessary. I am me.

Many young people dream of high-level infrastructure.  There are some difficulties, with clichés about migration in the West and even currently between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. After your career and experiences in Benin, France, Italy and Spain, how do you regard this topic?

As I would say to my little brother, my little sister or my child: in my day, I had no choice. If I wanted to be a professional basketball player, I had to travel abroad. I haven’t been lucky enough to have had a championship, let alone a national team. If I come back to Benin, it is because President Talon has focused on the development of sports talent. Infrastructure and programmes have been put in place to develop our youth. Recently, when I attended a U16 (under-16) game, I didn’t see a level of basketball played like that in Benin for 20 years for under-16s; and that’s encouraging. What I would like to say to them, especially to these young people who dream of elsewhere, is that we can build elsewhere here. Today, the African Basketball League is excellent and professional. I can’t stand to see players who earn 5 million CFA francs who decide to play in the fourth or fifth division in France.

I wish I could have made money by being at home and doing what I love. I had no choice. So, I had to leave and adapt. That was my opportunity. Today, a little sister who has the talent and for whom we provide a national team, infrastructure, resources, I don’t see why she would want to go elsewhere. That said, to each his own. There are some who dream more of travelling than winning titles; I wanted to win. And I went where I could win easily. However, it is true, life belongs to us and the choices belong to us.

Speaking of infrastructure, are you convinced that there is already enough for young Africans not to want to go elsewhere?

Oh no, absolutely not. I think the policy has changed. Today, there is a real desire to develop sports. But we know very well that we are very far from the goal, for a country like mine, which is very small, we don’t have a gymnasium with a parquet floor. This is sorely lacking. But I think people are also starting to wake up. Once again, the development of the African league will bring us a light. There is also awareness-raising. If we ask athletes to train twice a week on concrete floors, we will quickly realise the limits, there will be injuries, short careers, and that will inevitably force us to think.

Haven’t decision-makers understood that with sport they can not only create jobs for young people and avoid the prevailing impoverishment that makes young people want to go elsewhere, even if it means taking the risk in the Mediterranean?

Of course! The business in sports, a few years back, people didn’t believe in it. But I think we’ve proven enough that sport may be the only place where you can do anything. Whether it’s business or social, sport brings people together at all levels. Sports are the only place where two enemies can sit at the same table and talk. Today, people are aware of this. That’s why, in Europe, what we’re noticing is that companies are coming back to the sports industry more and more to hire. What for? Because as an athlete, you develop skills to the point where even without diplomas to validate them, you manage to work as a team. So, collaboration, we communicate especially for those who play team sports. These skills are in high demand these days. Management and also leadership because as an athlete, at some point you are obliged to show leadership and all these qualities are sought after by companies that come to hire former athletes, sportsmen and women to go and strengthen themselves. 

But if we stay in your perspective, don’t you also fear a talent drain for these athletes who perform and are ultimately forced to go because of the lack of infrastructure?

Of course, at the beginning we will lose some since we are not yet ready to receive them. But in 5 years, in 10 years when we will have gyms, when we will have trainers who will be trained, I am convinced that everyone would want to stay here and develop this league.

It is said that when Africans have skills or talents like you, they can easily travel. They easily manage to obtain French nationality. Why is it complicated when it’s not? How do you interpret it as a high-level athlete in relation to this barrier that is put in place by mobility, not necessarily to migrate?

You know, I don’t blame anybody. I had my journey, and at some point, I had to make a choice. I was offered a nationality to have a more comfortable life because as a foreigner, I would certainly have made a career, and I think I had talent. I made the choice that suited me personally. That is, to earn a living to protect my family. If it’s widespread, I don’t know. But I think everyone makes choices about their values as well.

I was an orphan; I had lost my father at a very young age and for me the issue of sheltering my family was very important. So, I had to accept the nationality so that I could give myself chances to succeed socially, more easily. I don’t regret it, because I’ve enriched myself with everything. Everywhere I am, I am at home, in fact, in France as in Cotonou.

Does the limited number of places for foreign athletes prevent them from shining?

Maybe if I had had a successful Beninese national team, a contract worth two thousand euros, and in Benin they gave me three million to stay at home, I would have stayed at home.

If the biggest contract of my career, which was 500 thousand euros to play for 9 months, was converted into a CFA to play in Cotonou, I would have stayed.

Do you realise that it’s almost impossible to get it?

That’s true. You talk about problems, I can’t manage geopolitics, it’s not my responsibility. On the other hand, if we develop our league, if we make available what we need, if we have trainers who work on young people and if we have an economic system of sport that follows, in ten years’ time, we will see if these children will choose to export themselves and learn a new language. People don’t realise how hard it is to adapt to a new culture. If you’re alone there, it’s super complicated. And on top of that, there’s the pressure to want to succeed at all costs. Put all these conditions that I have available here, and I am convinced that 100% of the athletes will stay at home.

Somehow, it’s not easy, as you think, to make millions when you’re far from home!

Of course not! How many Isabelle Yacoubou are out there? Even in Europe? I took the place of a Frenchwoman. Because of my talent, I took the place of someone in the French team of France. Do you think it’s normal for them?  They would have preferred them to stay in the France team, as French. So, the problem is on our side. I don’t see a problem. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Now I think that this opportunity, in relation to my experience, can be created here. So, I am looking for solutions so that Beninese and African youth can move forward.

Could we hope for a comeback move to reverse the trend?

It’s already happening. During the BIG BLAST 2023 tournament in EYA, Benin, (editor’s note: tournament in which she took part as a Guest-star) a Gabonese, former captain of the national team, Géraldine Robert also chose to leave by being preselected in the France team. She went back to Gabon to play in the AFCON for her national team. But, she did it because she had the conditions; its president had called her; they had paid for the expenses at its European value, because once again her charges are in Europe. The rents she pays are in euros. And, we can’t ask people to come back and pay them in CFA and hope that they will say yes! In Gabon, they put in the means for these girls to come and perform and they were runners-up. While they had not performed for years on the continent. So, there are things that are being done… I think our generation is really aware that what we got, we have a duty to give back. At the end of our careers, we realise how important it is to come back and give back to where we started.

What is your biggest dream today?

Create a professional league like the National Basketball Association (NBA) or the African Basketball League (BAL) that would be recognized. The aim is for foreigners and Europeans to want to come and play in Africa because we still have things to offer. There is no winter here, there is no cold, life is relatively cheaper… We still have arguments on the table. We have beaches, we have mountains, we have everything to receive people.

Any final words to conclude?

My book, I hope, will really appeal to all young people. Not just young people, women, men; People who fight, people who never stop. I’m often told I’m a strong woman, I say no, I’m a very fragile woman, only that I had to be strong to face my weaknesses. So, to all those people who think they won’t make it, I say no! We have to keep going. Of course, it hurts when you fall, but you have to get back up every time, with every challenge you don’t give up, and that’s what life is all about I think. This leads us to experience complicated things and joys. When it’s joyful, you also have to enjoy it at its true value. And when it’s tough, you have to keep doing your best. I hope that this book will have this message of hope for all those who despair, who don’t believe in it, or who give up at times, and that it gives them strength.