A brief, strange trip its been with the Orlando Pride and Harry Potter author | OneFootball

The strangest media exchange during 2024 involving any of the Orlando soccer teams involved the Orlando Pride and the Harry Potter author. It was a very brief exchange.

Orlando Pride striker Barbra Banda – who scored the lone, winning goal when the team brought the city its first major league championship – won the 2024 BBS Footballer of the Year Award. Shortly afterward, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, hopped on X in reply to amplify an earlier criticism of the award.

The amplification said that in making this award the BBC spared the trouble of individually spitting in women’s faces.

The background of this disagreement is that in 2022 Banda and three other players were kept off the Zamba roster for the Africa Women's Cup of Nations. This is because their testosterone levels were outside the limits of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

The test was not the final decision, as the players were offered a round of testosterone suppression treatments. However, Banda declined the treatment, possibly due to concern about potential side effects.

The Zambian Football Association (FAZ) has been in negotiations with the CAF, understanding that these limits exceed those of the Olympics, where Banda has played successfully. She is a star striker for Zambia, same as with the Orlando Pride.

The venom spat briefly about this over social media is due to misunderstanding the bottom line of why soccer organizations establish an acceptable level and check for this hormone. In forming the NWSL policy, the league studied the 2015 International Olympic Committee policy.

Jul 25, 2024; Nice, France; Tierna Davidson of United States in action with Barbra Banda of Zambia in a women's Group B match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Allianz Riviera. Mandatory Credit: Raquel Cunha/Reuters via Imagn Images | Reuters-Imagn Images

These organizations don’t aim their policies at resolving specific disputes over gender identification, which is what excited these social media posters. They instead focus on levels of testosterone that will serve as a performance-enhancing substance.

The policies require that the athlete’s level measurement be under 10 nanomoles per liter (10 nmol/L). A mole is the amount of a substance that contains a large number of its molecules.

A nanomole is one-billionth of a mole.

To date, Barbra Banda has not retaliated against any of her critics on social media. She supports her teammates and coaches in women’s sports – especially with the Orlando Pride and Zambia internationally.

We should enter the 2025 season following her example. We should continue to give Barbra Banda the Orlando Pride ball so she can continue showing us how to win.