BILBAO // Inaki Williams is not the type of football player you would expect to see at Athletic Bilbao, the traditional Spanish club who only field players from Bilbao and its neighboring Basque regions.
Williams, a talented 21-year-old striker who has been thriving in his second season with the senior team, is the son of Liberian parents who fled war in Africa in the 1990s. He was born in Bilbao, like many other players in the team, but does not carry the local family history and tradition that nearly all of his teammates have.
Williams looks like an outsider in a line-up filled with traditional Basque surnames such as Etxeita, Aduriz, Eraso and Iturraspe. The speedy forward earlier this year became the first black player to score for Bilbao in their 117-year history.
“I was born here, but my origins and roots are not forgotten,” Williams says. “I feel like I’m Basque, but I know that there is part of me that is also African.”
His parents reached a refugee camp in Ghana after fleeing civil war in Liberia, then moved to Spain and settled in the Basque region. He made it to Bilbao’s famed football academy in 2012, and after scoring 31 goals in as many games in a season quickly attracted the attention of those in charge of the main squad.
He joined the senior team last year and continued to excel in the Primera Liga, earning comparisons to a young Mario Balotelli, the Italian striker. Williams is already a member of Spain’s under-21 national team, with speculation Real Madrid is looking to sign him.
Football was all he had as his parents struggled financially after arriving in Spain. His father had to get a job in London and spent eight years away from home.
“He has seen a lot of people around him suffer and, although that’s not good, in the long term it helped him mature,” said Felix Tainta, Williams’s agent.
Williams might not have been in the position he is today if his parents had not made it from Africa to Bilbao.
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The club have an internal “code” that says they can only sign local-born players, or those who have come through the academies of teams in the Basque region. Bilbao take pride in this policy of investing in “homegrown talents”, which they call a “defining characteristic” of the organisation.
“Athletic Club as an institution, along with its supporters, are characterised by their desire to defend values which are becoming increasingly uncommon in football and in sports overall in the 21st century,” the club say boldly on their website, with Williams’s photo featured in the background. “[It has] become a uniting force which outweighs the discrepancies to be found in our daily lives, making our philosophy different to any other and different to the way football is understood throughout the world.”
Williams is not the first player of African descent to make it at Bilbao. Jonas Ramalho, son of an Angolan father, played for the main team in 2011.
“Bilbao has become a multicultural city. It’s normal to see players from different origins,” said Javier Gomez, a 37-year-old Bilbao fan. “If they are formed here, I don’t see a problem, it’s within our philosophy.”
Williams was part of the squad that stunned Barcelona to win the Spanish Super Cup title in August, Bilbao's first major title in 31 years. Williams had scored the team's lone goal when they lost the Copa del Rey final 3-1 to Barcelona just a few weeks earlier.
Bilbao also lost Copa finals to Barcelona in 2009 and 2012. They were runner-up to Atletico Madrid in the Europa League in 2012.
Bilbao are eight-time Spanish league champions, with their last triumph in the 1983/84 season. They finished seventh last season and fourth the previous year.
“Athletic’s identity and stability has allowed the club to stay on the right track in a football world in which it is very difficult to survive,” said Jose Maria Amorrortu, Bilbao’s sports director. “To win a title against Barcelona, it shows that it is possible if you believe that it may be possible.”
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Bilbao do not try to recruit youngsters from abroad to their academy. Amorrortu calls the club “a family” with proud traditions and dismisses critics who say their player policy is discriminatory.
“Not the entire world understands what Athletic is all about,” said Inma Carbajo, a 39-year-old supporter in Bilbao. “It’s this philosophy that makes the club great. We would rather be relegated to the second division than change this philosophy.”
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