When she was younger, Japanese national team player Ami Otaki was told football was a man’s game and “not a sport that girls will continue to play forever.” “The reality was that the athletes and staff of women's soccer themselves thought that women's soccer was worthless because no one supported us,” said Otaki. After the Japanese women's national team won the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, Otaki founded Nadeshiko Care (NadeCare) to support young female athletes and inspire them to believe in themselves. 

United by the game of football, NadeCare empowers teenage girls through workshops that provide opportunities to interact with elite athletes, discuss the value of football, and build career plans for on and off the field. NadeCare seeks to be an organization that can “go beyond the framework of soccer and sports and build a platform that can encourage women in a way that has never been done before,” said Otaki.

Play Academy with Naomi Osaka will help support NadeCare in providing students with workshops, leadership development programming, career seminars and discussions with elite athletes to shape the next generation of leaders.