REFEREES
Words: Mike Backler & Jacob Viera
Website: englandfootball.com
Jacob Viera
As part of the FA’s Respect the Ref campaign, Jacob Viera shares his quite incredible story. After a horribly traumatic journey from Kenya and with dreams of being a footballer, Jacob found support, safety and happiness in grassroots refereeing. As a young and gifted footballer from Nairobi in Kenya, Jacob was spending two pre-tournament weeks in a hotel where he was approached to be a drug mule by a gang hoping to use him to transport drugs to Tanzania. Jacob was in a horrible position that no person, let alone teenager, should ever find themselves in. He was all too aware that if he was caught, it
would be him that would be held responsible. If he said no, they would ensure word of the approach never reached anyone else. Jacob showed a staggering level of bravery to deceive the gang, telling them that the bus was due to leave a few days later. News reached him on his return that the drug barons had been arrested at the hotel, and now he feared revenge. After his high school education, Jacob returned to Nairobi, but as he began playing football in the Kenyan Premier League, his profile rose and in June 2014 on his return home from training he was attacked and left fighting for his life in hospital for a month. The attackers had attached live wires to his door handle. His neighbour found him unconscious with the skin on his neck, face and left arm scorched off to the point that he felt the other patients were scared to look at him. Miraculously, three weeks after being discharged, he travelled for a
trial with Newcastle. Terrified to return and after the advice of an academy coach, he sought asylum. After an ordeal that at times saw him running five miles from his accommodation every morning to keep fit, to then being placed in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre overnight with no belongings and no phone, he was free to start a new life in Liverpool. And Jacob has never looked back … I was given the opportunity to start a new life in Liverpool in 2014, and while I thought my English was fairly good, I couldn't understand the Scousers properly with their strong accent and lots of slang. But Liverpool quickly became my second home away from home. I started playing for local clubs like Edge Hill FC, Mossley Hill Athletic, Mandela FC and Dengo United. And before long, I was invited to train with the Everton FC Academy Under 18 squad, under Paul Tait. I
