Zainab Alema
Zainab Alema
Rugby Union
Zainab Alema (also known as Zee or the Bulldozer) is a rugby player for Richmond Women, a mum of 3 and former neonatal nurse.
Zee is a British-Ghanaian Muslim acquired the nickname 'Bulldozer' early in her rugby career.
“Being a Black Muslim woman in rugby, I’m smashing stereotypes and breaking those barriers. And if you look at it deeply, nobody expects a nurse to be playing rugby. Nobody expects a mother-of-three to be playing rugby. Nobody expects a career woman to be playing rugby.
I’m smashing these stereotypes as a bulldozer would smash buildings on a site.”
She was awarded Sunday Times Grassroots Sports Woman of the Year 2020 and Woman of the Future in 2022 .
She is the founder of Studs in the Mud a charity project which uses rugby change the lives of women and children in Ghana.
Zainab is a Trustee for the Muslim Sports Foundation.
She featured in Amazon Prime's No Woman No Try Docmentary and her dream is to make history by becoming the First Muslim woman to play rugby for England.
