Becoming a professional footballer was the dream of Sikou Niakaté, French author and documentary filmmaker. But he was never able to accomplish it. Not for lack of level, no. In the columns of The Teamhe delivers a rare and touching testimony by explaining that he gave up his passion because of complexes linked to his intimacy.
“As a child, I only wanted one thing, to become a footballer. I dreamed of Manchester United,” explains the 34-year-old. “I played in the neighborhood, in Paris, in the 19th arrondissement. I played football three hours a day minimum. I was strong. Excellent even,” he continues. Measuring 1.92 m at college, he had great technical qualities
“I had the Calbar Crusaders”
Despite this strong potential, he never took the step of joining a club. He explains that he is self-conscious about the size of his penis, which he says is too small. “Accepting the idea of collective showers, for me, was unthinkable. Impossible. What I hid was going to become visible,” he confides to our colleagues. Without taboo, Sikou Niakaté looks back on two traumatic moments from his childhood: first a remark from his sister, then the mockery of a friend after a match.
“You have a tiny dick, it’s crazy,” he told her, bursting out laughing. Very painful words for Sikou Niakaté. “I’m dead inside. I walk behind him looking at the ground, head down. So I decided to never play club football. Never, never. There are some who say that they were unable to have a career because they became the crusaders, I was the crusader of Calbar! », he says with a touch of irony.
The director of the documentary In the dark, men cryavailable on YouTube, considers having been “punished by the genetic lottery”. Although he managed to overcome this pain through his romantic relationships, the wound remains deep. “I am aware that the size of my penis has taken on an irrational importance in my life. But it is irrational on the scale of the world’s emergency; on the scale of my life, it’s my inner war,” he concludes.
