The decision of Inaki Williams to finally declare for the country which his parents left just before he was born came last summer, after he had visited Accra along with his partner Patricia Morales, and his younger brother Nico.
“For my parents, it was not easy to accept, but in the end my grandfather helped me make the decision,” the Athletic Bilbao centre-forward Inaki Williams said in an interview with The Athletic.
“He wanted me to fulfil his dream, to see me as a Black Star with the Ghana national team. The truth is that all I achieve with this team is for him.”
The decision to represent Ghana was not easily taken by Bilbao-born Williams, who as a youngster had played for Spain’s underage teams and gained one senior cap for them in a friendly in 2016.
His parents’ misgivings came from their knowledge of the excitement and pressure which the Black Stars generate in their home country. But the 28 year old, who remembers cheering from the Basque country in 2010 as Ghana reached a World Cup quarter-finals, would be more than happy to live through such an experience with his new national team.
“My parents, above all my mother, know how they live football in Ghana,” Williams said. “They know there is so much passion. And thought that would be a lot of pressure for me. But for me it’s just the opposite. It is a motivation, I am coming here to help as I can, to put my grain of sand, and give everything I have in every game, every training session. Having the opportunity to play in this World Cup is a dream come true. I hope I can enjoy it and take Ghana as far as possible.”
As Williams performed regularly for Athletic in La Liga and UEFA club competitions through recent seasons, the Ghanaian federation kept in touch about switching allegiance, but he had always decided to keep his options open.
The decision to finally declare for the country which his parents left just before he was born came last summer, after he had visited Accra along with his partner Patricia Morales, and his younger brother Nico.
“It was an incredible trip,” Williams said. “I enjoyed it so much — the city, the people, all the culture, all the history. I wanted to show my girlfriend too what Ghana is like, for her to get to know my family. I also wanted to get to know part of the culture. I had been many years without going, I was very small the last time I visited. I really want to return next summer now.”
In June, the brothers spent time at his grandparents’ house, met many within his large extended family, visited some local schools and spent time getting to know about life in Ghana.
“I have practically all my family there — on my father’s side there are six brothers, on my mother’s side four sisters,” Williams said. “So I have a load of cousins, uncles, aunts, second cousins, so many people there. The family is involved in agriculture, cultivating cocoa, rice. They work very hard, grow crops to sell. They are doing very well in that. And they are all so happy to see someone from their family representing the Ghana senior team.” Williams’ parents Maria and Felix left Accra in 1993, setting off on a dangerous and gruelling 4,000-kilometre overland journey so that Inaki (and later, brother Nico, eight years younger) would have more opportunities as they grew up in Europe.
“There is nothing I could ever do to return to them all they have done for us,” Williams said. “They risked their lives so that we, my brother and I, have a better future. And they achieved that. I will forever appreciate what my father and my mother did for us — they are fighters, they instilled in us respect, hard work, every day, that nobody gifts you anything. The truth is I am so proud to be able to have them as parents, and I try to do everything possible so that they feel proud to have me as a son.”
Williams’ parents avoided talking about their journey when their children were younger. He was 20 before his mother told him how she and her husband had crossed the Sahara by truck, and by walking barefoot over burning sand, before reaching the Spanish city of Melilla on the north coast of Africa.
“My mother was pregnant with me,” Williams revealed. “They crossed part of the Sahara desert, on foot, leaving many people behind. The route was not easy. They arrived at Melilla, and climbed over the fence there. They knew that they would be arrested, and that they would be deported. They met a lawyer who told them to tear up all their Ghana documents, and say they came from Liberia, which was then at war, so that they could apply for political asylum. That is how it was.”
Thanks to aid from the Catholic organisation Caritas, the couple ended up in Bilbao, where their first son was born in the city’s Basurto hospital. He was named after Basque priest Inaki Mardones, who helped the family and also gifted the baby his first red and white striped Athletic jersey.
The family soon moved south to Pamplona — where Felix found different jobs in agriculture and construction, while Maria also worked long hours as a cleaner. Felix later moved to London to earn more money to support the family, and worked for a while on the turnstiles at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, but was able to return by the time his eldest son had turned professional and made his La Liga debut in December 2014.
“Everything happens for a reason, destiny wanted me to be born in Bilbao, so I was able to play for Athletic Club,” he said. “The culture I grew up in, all my friends, at school, the people around me, were Basque, in Pamplona and Bilbao. When I got home, the culture my parents instilled in me was from Ghana.“ “You can have two feelings — I have the Basque culture and the culture and blood of Ghana. I have the two nationalities now, and I am very happy, very proud, to be able to represent both, and make many people happy.”
Williams became the first black goalscorer in Athletic club history by scoring against Torino in the Europa League in February 2015. He was soon a regular starter, if not always regular goalscorer, in a team seen by some as a sort of unofficial Basque national side. A place in the club’s history was cemented with the winning goal in the 2021 Spanish Supercopa victory over Barcelona.
In April 2016, he began an incredible run of appearing in every La Liga game — a record which is at 247 consecutive Primera Division appearances. This is even more remarkable given the explosive physical nature of Williams’ play as a dynamic attacker.
He has played with knocks and niggles, a further example of his family heritage of sacrifice and perseverance.
“I have very good genes,” Williams noted. “My grandfather is 90 years old but still goes for his walk every morning, three hours out in the fields. Obviously, you also have to try and look after yourself well, eat well, rest well, and have a quiet life. That all helps me to be available whenever the coach wants me. It is a lot of games — it seems crazy.” Not everyone has been so accepting of Williams and others from different backgrounds playing football in Spain.
In August 2016, when Athletic visited Sporting Gijon’s El Molinon stadium, referee Carlos Clos Gomez stopped the play after hearing “monkey chants” aimed at Williams coming from the stands. Visiting Espanyol’s RCDE Stadium in January 2020, Williams told a post-match interview he had suffered racist insults during the game. La Liga denounced that incident to the Spanish authorities, and a court case is still ongoing.
“They were situations which were quite tense, in the moment very unpleasant,” Williams explained. “You would not wish that on anyone. But it shows there is racism in Spain. There is a part of society, very small, which still does not understand that we are all humans, independent of the culture, sex, or colour of the skin.
“That is a minority that we have to get rid of. In football and in life it cannot be tolerated, these situations. Those of us who love football have to give an example to the kids, educate them and enjoy your team, without caring about race, sex, or religion. Nobody is born racist, and it is something that comes with the education of every person.” After making his decision officially last summer after returning from visiting his family in Accra, Williams was one of four new players included in Black Stars’ manager Otto Addo’s squad for September’s World Cup warm-up friendlies.
The introduction within the squad was helped by Williams’ knowledge of Twi, the language he speaks with his grandparents. His new team-mates called him Kwaku, a name given to boys born on Wednesdays. There were also bonding conversions around Ghanaian culture, food and traditions.
