The Backroom Staff - Presenter: Elli Famira

Presenter: Elli Famira

Leaving the law, TV and interviewing Premier League stars

Probably every football fan has dreamed of making a living talking about football and meeting famous players and coaches. Elli Famira made it happen for herself. She quit her job as a lawyer, became a full time football presenter by starting to be a regular on Astro’s Euro 2020 coverage before becoming the host of a football magazine show, 'Berbulu Dengan Burn' and Malaysian Super League on Astro Arena, Malaysia’s biggest sports channel!

Now in the UK, finishing a master’s degree in media & creative studies at Loughborough University London, Elli shares insights, stories and her work to make football more inclusive. Oh, she’s also played social and semi-pro basketball, football and is currently on the Malaysian national flag football team!

Elli is talented, charismatic and seems to have done (and succeeded at) a bit of everything! This was a really enjoyable interview for me; I hope you enjoy it too.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

[ Getting into football + Starting a law career ]

It all started with my family of course. It was always something my dad and brothers put on screen. I’ve been watching football casually since I was a kid. I played futsal a lot with my friends too but never actually played 11-a-side until law school!

I started training with the Malaysian Bar football team and had so much fun understanding the technical aspects and tactics of the game. Since then, I started watching football from a whole different point of view. I was reading a lot of articles about stats, data, everything! I had football debates with my friends and talked about it a lot on Twitter. I was just trying to understand as much as I could.

So basically, I became a nerd somehow!

Third year of law school, I interned with the Professional Footballers Association of Malaysia (PFAM), learning about legal contracts in football. Finishing law school, I did my pupillage at a law firm, made sure I got myself called to the Bar and I jumped straight into the aviation industry, learning all these commercial and corporate law for a year or two. By then I got so restless because I know this does not give me genuine joy, and I talked to my boss honestly and told him, ‘I really need to give myself a shot. I really need to make my way to the sports industry, I don't know how, but I'm going to quit for now.’ He supported me 100%. One of the best bosses ever, Mr. Makram.

[ First steps - applying at Selangor Football Club ]

I applied for a commercial exec position at my local football club (Selangor FC), reached the point where we discussed benefit packages and all, and I found myself being interviewed for other different positions within the same club!

Suddenly COVID happened and there was a hiring freeze, so I landed a commercial position for a brief stint with a local digital sports tech start up whilst doing some legal work for a friend’s firm. Out of the blue, an old university debate friend, a host with Astro Sports, Keesh invited me to be a guest on his football show. I was supposed to interview a Selangor player on the show, so I said yes right away. I really didn’t think much of it, I thought I was just helping my friend out.

The next day (after the shooting) though, the bosses of the sports department at the station asked if I wanted to have a chat to explore an opportunity with them. In my head, I thought well, maybe a part time or weekend thing could be fine. I never, ever, thought about making it a full-time career or something. I had no slight interest in being on TV at all!

They wanted me to join as a football presenter full time. They said, ‘we really want to bring you in, because we've never seen any woman being able to talk about football in that way.’ They saw it as a chance to introduce a woman who can talk about football to the audience - especially the Malay speaking community in Malaysia, because we've never had that before.

Astro Sports has both English and Malay channels but much of the football audience (which is pretty much EPL-centric) was only able to watch the game and consume football content on TV in English mostly, and they felt it’s time to expand the audience by making more international and EPL football content to be accessible in Malay for the largest audience in the country.

It was crazy, Astro is the biggest TV channel in Malaysia, and I was very anxious. I had to accept that my life was going to change, I’d be more in the public eye and I don't know if I'm okay with that or not. I’d never been on TV and didn’t have any interest in being on TV or anything!

But, I was very fixated on the bigger picture that my bosses sold to me and the idea that I could help contribute to changing the sports media landscape in Malaysia and open the floodgates for other potential female talents out there. So, I said yes!

[ Euro 2020 ]

At first, I was just assigned to observing the hosts, hosting a Twitter Space for Olympics coverage and helping out with some digital stuff, seeing how they did everything. They were asking me if I were interested in exploring different roles and I remember looking at my bosses thinking I have no idea what you guys are talking about, because I have no idea how these things work in a broadcasting company!

I started at the company during Euro 2020 and then, I think it was my second week, the Round of 16 - France against Switzerland - and they wanted me as a guest on that show. There was a host and two other guests analyzing the game pre-match, halftime and post-match.

In terms of the preparation, I just had to figure it out! But I had the loveliest colleagues who remain my strongest support system til this very day. We would sit down together and they would brainstorm properly with me regarding things to be included in discussion etc. On air, you have to be engaging, ‘sassy’ or rather quick on your feet while making sure you are well equipped with all the facts too.

Well, for my debut appearance, I thought it went quite well! I engaged with the host and other guests really well. Maybe it left an impression?

[ Own shows ]

After the Euros, I started joining the existing magazine show as a co-host. We cover current events and anything happening in local and international football (e.g. Premier League, Champions League, etc). My co-host and I always invite one guest and then we have callers ringing in as well.

It’s been a really, really radical training ground. I had no prior training or experience, but I think working with my co-host and the great support system - all the producers and other hosts, they understand the pressure and everything, made my learning journey wholesome and fun. They encourage me to just keep being me and I think the response has been positive in celebrating the whole new dynamic of the show!

I was also assigned to co-host live shows for the local Malaysian football scene. The audience is different and you have to understand them and the hostility of emotions when it comes to local football. Having a girl talking about their own local football clubs might feel like an uncharted territory (for some viewers). I try to be consistent with my approach towards the discussions and questions to pundits. Everything has to be factual, objective, with a little bit of fun and stuff - and so far they're okay with that. I always try to be a bit more provocative when it comes to discussing the local football scene, just to spark some great insights from our pundits you know?

[ How do you prepare for your shows? ]

For the debate show, we have a weekly meeting with the producer and my co-host after the weekend’s games and make a shortlist of at least 4 to 5 things that we want to talk about. Then we just start doing research right away!

Really, when people ask me about the best part of the job, I always say the research part, because I get to be in my element and go into a rabbit hole and then bring it to the table and share it with the audience.

You want to try to understand every single angle of whatever incident you’re talking about. Sometimes the conversation could be something technical, for example, when Barcelona was going through bankruptcy but still able to bring players in on loan, so fans were asking how this was possible. I had to turn my lawyer mode on and break the whole financial affair down in layman's language and (that way) you can give them a really good, substantial, informative conversation.

It’s important because everything is live, so we need to be on top of it, that’s why the preparation is so crazy!

[ What kind of feedback do you get? ]

After any single show, you would walk out knowing if it was a good show or not. We always have honest conversations and my co-host always keeps me accountable, because we are literally the main faces of the show.

Sometimes feedback can be something very dry and technical, like, ‘you should speak a bit slower’, because when I'm excited I'm like rapping! (haha) I’m trying to be a bit more calm, yet eloquent!

And I always talk about it on my social media with the fans who follow the show. They might DM me or just comment there.

[ Do you ever watch your own interviews or your own show (to see your performance)? ]

I try not to but I always do! You would always not want to look at yourself, but for homework purposes I would have to, and I'm happy to do that. I always think ‘oh, what could I have contributed to the conversation better’ or ‘how could I have handled a certain question better’. It's just all the technical homework that I need to do.

[ Have you had to deal with negative comments on social media? ]

Only early on, but it was always outweighed by other positive comments. I think I can say, football has a very male dominated audience and I always try to understand this. I think I'm a realist in a way that I don't take anything personal. I understand at the end of the day, they are consumers on the receiving end. We choose what show we like to watch and what host we like - and sometimes we just prefer another host or something. It’s all about personal preference.

Really, I’ve only seen a few comments that talk about me being a woman and I realized, like, actually the sports and football fans in Malaysia, they're quite healthy in embracing, having a woman talking about football. Especially people who follow global football are not strangers to it (seeing women in media).

I also feel just huge support coming from the audience. I've had really really nice feedback coming from women dropping me long essays in my DMs like, thank you so much for doing what I'm doing, it just gives them some confidence, knowing that there's a woman out there who can talk about football profoundly because they want to talk about it with their friends as well but sometimes they get a bit shy just because they're a woman. And now they see a reflection of themselves on TV, a girl being able to talk about football with so much passion, - it makes them feel that the game belongs to them too.

I didn't realize this impact until they made me understand, ‘okay, there's an impact in what I'm doing’. And I think that's why I try to be very responsible about my work and always want to hold myself accountable in whatever I do.

[ Do you ever get recognized in person? ]

I do, not all the time of course. But I do when I’m back home in Malaysia. I even have 3 fans that sent me a DM sharing a picture of their newborn daughter, and they said that they named their daughter after me! It's crazy. But also really wholesome.

[ Why did you decide to do a masters degree now? ]

I understand everyone around me in the industry saying that you don't need to do your masters because you can get the experience by doing shows and just getting more reps. My thought process behind it was I want to know more about the whole science and art behind speaking to your audience on air - what it could look like, how to dictate or to initiate a certain behavioural change in the sports audience landscape in my country.

I won a Chevening scholarship from the UK government for talents from different industries to do their masters in the UK and then coming back and contributing to your local industry. A lot of scholars are doctors for example, doing all these important things like cancer research!

I chose Loughborough and their London campus because it’s one of the most prominent sports universities out there. They produce consistent, credible research in the industry, and I was very attracted to their programme.

Also it works with Astro b/c we’re an official Premier League broadcaster, so between my classes they send me to training grounds, conducting interviews with players or managers. On some match days, I’m going to stadiums doing pitch side interviews or interviewing managers after the match. It has been absolutely crazy!

Everything just aligns so I get to be based here. I get to do my master's and do my work in a footballing nation like England.

[ What differences have you observed between broadcasting and media in the UK and in Malaysia? ]

There are constant efforts coming from TV stations and professional clubs constantly finding a way to champion female presenters. I think though, especially in a football context, the audience here (UK) is way more open, like way, way more open. But it’s only understandable cause they’ve been one of the oldest footballing nations in the world too. Malaysia is still making baby steps towards discovering and embracing more female talents on screen talking about football.

I’ve never (had a bad experience here) - I've had great interviews with a World Cup winner like Emi Martinez, and many EPL managers. Sometimes I have to do interviews alone or to go to the training ground alone - and I've never felt unwelcome in any kind of way. Everyone at work is generally friendly.

[ Are you nervous for these interviews with big stars? ]

My first time, I was really nervous, I was interviewing Emmanuel Petit before the big North London Derby game. I remember clearly approaching the media area on the sideline wiping my sweat with a tissue, trying to fix my hair, I couldn’t even change into my heels and I was so short compared to him! But the moment I started talking to him I just treated him as a friend I genuinely wanted to have a conversation with.

There were some interviews that weren’t really great because I made myself small and was too scared. My producer told me I need to really own that stage, I can't be intimidated and think, ‘oh, no, there's someone big, and I’m someone small’ - no, no! You share the same stage and everything. I think that advice really stayed with me, and after that I think I’ve had really fairly better interviews.

I have this goal, that whoever I interview, I never wanna make them feel like they are being interviewed. We're going to have fun talking to each other, a wholesome conversation because I generally want to know about you!

I realized, the moment you own your confidence, and you really just wanna bring yourself into that interview you can have really good conversations and oh, my god - I had such wholesome conversations with Emi (Martinez), with Ivan Toney, with all these big names.

[ How is the interaction with the other presenters/pundits, from other companies? ]

I don't really have a massive number of experiences compared to my other colleagues who actually work a lot more with them but I do bump into some of the hosts who have their own shows on Sky Sports, like Julia Stuart and all that. They’re actually really, really helpful. When I go to interviews, the female hosts especially are so helpful, always asking how my interview went and sharing feedback and advice. I learn a lot from watching their interviews too.

[ How does access to players and coaches for interviews work? ]

That’s part of Astro’s relationship with the Premier League. The EPL has their team working with all these broadcasters and they give us slots for interviews.

The decision making, especially for bigger names (not everyone gets to interview Klopp or Pep!) is built on the reps we get from our interviews - the questions we have and if they like our work, then they can prioritize us.

So every single rep you get, you need to make sure that it's a really good interview so they want to keep giving out the good slots to you. It’s a product and they (the Premier League) want their product to be advertised in a really good way, with good quality stuff coming from the broadcasters that they work with.

[ Gender gap and inclusion in professional football ]

If you ask me, more representation for women in football is not a trend but a behavioral change that has been taking place. We can’t stop speaking on our own behalf. But also, it helps too when more male players and professionals speak up about discrimination faced by female players, talents, that increases the volume. Male allies matter, in multiple aspects of life. Always.

Still, there will always be some people who might not want to work with you just because you are a woman - especially if you’re a woman who speaks up strongly for herself or is not easily intimidated. I'm always happy to be put in an uncomfortable position. It’s a long fight that I honestly think that a lot of us in the industry are ready to embrace, for the greater benefit of the public and female representation in sports.

One thing I know, I will never be afraid of being myself in this industry, and that source of confidence is honestly derived from just watching how all these amazing female presenters in this industry carry themselves at work. As long as we know we own that space, we come equipped with substance, and the value will show itself.

Follow Elli on Twitter and let her know you enjoyed the interview!

Have comments, questions or want to have your story featured on The Backroom Staff? send us a message or simply reply to this newsletter, we'll read it!