REWRITING THE GAME: GENY DECKER (FIFA MASTER 25th EDITION)
It was only a day or two after landing in Northern Ireland when Geneva “Geny” Decker found herself putting on a jersey for her first competitive soccer match. Four days after graduating from university and still jet-lagged from crossing the ocean, she was meeting her team-mates for the first time and still getting to grips with the rhythm of training. Yet, within minutes of kick-off, she was back in her element – chasing down passes, linking play, feeling the game. “I was surprised they put me in so fast,” she says, “but it felt right straight away.”
Her stint in the Northern Ireland Football League’s Danske Bank Women’s Premiership became a season to remember. Playing for Sion Swifts, Geny helped the team finish second in the league, win a major summer tournament, and lift the Irish Cup at Windsor Park. She scored regularly, adapted to new roles, and even made it to BBC Sport Northern Ireland (though the commentators never quite got her name right). Off the pitch, she was welcomed into the local community: tea at the manager’s house after training, time with her host family, and the occasional cross-training session at the local boxing gym. “It was such a positive experience,” she says. “It flipped my relationship with the sport back upright.” Football – or soccer, in her own words – has cut across every chapter of her life, from knocking a ball around in her backyard to playing competitive matches on opposite coasts of the U.S.
Before Geny’s first birthday, the Decker family traded the San Francisco hills for the beaches of San Diego. Southern California became the backdrop of her childhood: boogie-boarding birthdays, knockout basketball on the sport court at school, and garden kickabouts with older sister Tricia and twin sister Ella. The Deckers encouraged their girls to try all sorts of sports – Geny’s mum driving the twins to soccer practice, her dad coaching their softball team. Growing up as twins, Geny and Ella shared almost everything: a room, a routine, and most of their childhood experiences. “Having a twin meant I had a built-in best friend from the start,” she says. “It shaped the way I understood and developed relationships.”
Family life also came with a multicultural dimension. Much of Geny’s now-fluent Spanish came not from a classroom but from the family’s Mexican nanny, who spoke only Spanish at home and regularly shared her culture with the girls. Travel deepened that exposure – from visiting family friends in Greece for the Athens Olympics, to whale watching in Baja California and even a safari in Tanzania and Kenya. For Geny, those experiences sparked a curiosity about people and cultures that would shape how she moves through the world.
While travel broadened her horizons, sport gave her an anchor. By her early teens she was a tri-sport athlete, playing competitive soccer, softball, and volleyball. Yet, over time, soccer pulled ahead. Tall, strong, and tactically aware, Geny stood out on the pitch from the get-go – so much so that rival parents occasionally questioned her age and asked to see her birth certificate. Her first club gave her a woman coach she idolised and the supportive environment she needed to develop, but as college aspirations grew, she realised she needed a higher level of competition. “Leaving that first team felt like leaving family. It was my first real lesson in balancing loyalty with ambition.” Moving to a bigger club was a daunting step, but it meant national showcase tournaments and a chance to measure herself against some of the best in the country.
That pathway soon led her into California’s Olympic Development Programme, another leap into unfamiliar territory. For the first time, she saw how deep the talent pool was. The experience was eye-opening, but also grounding: soccer might not last forever, but it could provide opportunities to continue her education at the highest level. That perspective shaped her recruitment journey. At a showcase in Las Vegas, she put in a standout performance – enough for a Yale scout to contact her coach and eventually offer her a spot that combined high-level soccer with world-class academics.
Arriving at Yale, Geny once again stepped into the unknown. Preseason was demanding, but she quickly earned her place in the starting line-up and started almost every match during her first year. Those first seasons brought confidence on the field and close friendships off it, but also challenges that tested her relationship with the sport. Injuries – from a concussion to a quad tear – and shifting team dynamics sometimes disrupted her rhythm, but there were also unforgettable highs.
Her sophomore season brought some of her best football, running up and down the flank as a fullback. And in her final game as a senior, she signed off in style, scoring a golden goal winner in extra time in front of family, friends, and classmates who poured onto the field in celebration. “That was the highlight of my college career,” she says with a smile. And just as important were the lessons learned along the way. College soccer showed her how tough the game could be, but also how much she valued education, friendships, and life beyond the sport.
At Yale, Geny’s interests stretched beyond the pitch. She began as a film major, drawn to the idea of travelling, telling stories, and capturing the world through a camera. Internships on reality television sets and in local newsrooms gave her a behind-the-scenes look at how stories are made – some inspiring, others disillusioning. By her sophomore year, she shifted into political science. “Switching from film to political science was still storytelling, just through a different medium,” she reflects. Amongst soccer and her studies, Geny also found time keep her creative side alive through filmmaking, photography, and writing on campus. A summer on Capitol Hill added another perspective, exposing her to the machinery of politics but also convincing her it wasn’t where she wanted to build a life. What tied all these experiences together was less a straight line than a clear thread: she was a storyteller at heart, curious about people and the world around her.
Still, when graduation came, there was a sense of unfinished business with soccer. Not ready to put her boots away, she explored options in Sweden, England, and Northern Ireland. Sion Swifts stood out immediately for their warmth and openness, and Geny made the leap. “The managers made me feel part of the team before I’d even signed, and that trust made the decision easy.” Sixteen weeks later, she left not just with goals and silverware, but new friendships, a sense of community, and most importantly, a chance to reconnect with the game on her own terms.
Back in the U.S., those threads – the perspective of political science, the creativity of film and media, and her lifelong passion for football – converged in a role at the U.S. Soccer Foundation. Working in marketing and communications, she discovered a way to bring together storytelling and sport in a career that felt like her own.
At the Foundation, Geny grew into her professional voice. What began with communications work soon expanded into managing community activations alongside partners such as adidas and Telemundo. She found energy in connecting corporate partners and local communities, and meaning in seeing football used as a tool for access and impact. Washington, D.C. became her home – a place where she built friendships, continued to play soccer socially, and found a community that grounded her beyond work. Over six and a half years, she broadened her skills and sharpened her ability to bring people together around the sport she loved.
In time, she began to wonder what the next chapter might look like. The FIFA Master appealed as a chance to broaden her horizons, to step outside the U.S. system she knew so well. “Growing up and working in the American soccer landscape gave me fluency in that world. After a while, I wanted to both exercise some different muscles and to be humbled by what I could learn by stepping into a more international environment.”
From her earliest playing days, women’s soccer had always felt normalised and embraced. In Europe she came to see that privilege more starkly while also experiencing first-hand the progress being made, including the UEFA Women’s Euro in Switzerland and Women’s Champions League final in Lisbon this year. “In the U.S., women’s soccer feels supported. While studying in Europe, I realized that wasn’t universal, but I’ve also seen how quickly the game is growing. That contrast gave me both perspective and hope.” Now, as she prepares to begin a new role with FIFA, Geny carries with her the storyteller’s voice she has honed across every chapter, ready to help rewrite how the game is experienced around the world.
By Daniela Huamán
FIFA Master 25th edition student
FIFA Master - International Master in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport, ranked Europe's No.1 course a record 12 times by SportBusiness.
FIFA Master - 25 years of Excellence in Sport Business Education - organised by CIES in partnership with De Montfort University (UK), SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy) and the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).
