⚽0️⃣3️⃣2️⃣ Hakim Zermouni
Meet Hakim Zermouni, whose informal sports diplomacy experience demonstrated the power of sport through football.
Born in France, Hakim grew up around Paris playing a variety of sports but found his football passion as a 12- or 13-year old with a local club. Instead of integrating into a typical football academy, Hakim continued with a more classic high school track then won a scholarship to play football in the United States in Iowa between 2004 and 2006, then at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas between 2006 and 2008, an NCAA Division One program.
Hakim Zermouni with the UNLV Rebels. Photo: Hakim Zermouni.
Hakim’s Story
Zermouni arrived in Las Vegas for Fall semester 2006 and began to make an offensive impact on-pitch for the UNLV Rebels. Off-field he enjoyed the cross-discipline influence of basketball afforded by the NBA’s Summer League in Las Vegas, notably when Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers practiced in his school’s gymnasium.
It was a good time to represent and play football as the French national team was still fresh off of its 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2000 European Championship title wins. “I think that the French were viewed very positively by soccer-centric people,” Zermouni recalled. He was interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun on what it was like to be a French player, and found that many people were keen to learn more about his homeland..
“When you say you are from Paris, people have stars in their eyes.”
He enjoyed playing, classes, and experiencing U.S. culture. The nearby Paris Las Vegas Hotel on the city’s famed casino strip offered a visual reminder of home through its Eiffel Tower replica. “It was quite nice,” Zermouni recalled. “Home was always more or less there in the background. Every time I wanted to eat some French pastry, I went to that hotel.”
He also encountered American perceptions of French food. “Sometimes people think that [all] we eat [are] snails,” he said while pointing out that, just like sushi for the Japanese, the French palette was more diverse.
The Sports Diplomacy Connection
As an NCAA student-athlete, Zermouni engaged in informal sports diplomacy on an everyday basis.
He represented his home country, culture, and its football and learned about that of the United States. “For me, it was a very positive experience, it was like dreaming while awake,” he recalled. But it was also a multilateral sports diplomacy experience.
“I learned a lot because I met and lived with many nationalities, whether it was from Trinidad, Cuba, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, or the United States. That’s just a few of the nationals who played with me, but we also lived together on campus. That was very valuable for me, that is how I learned, from being together with different cultures and when you’re playing, that sports is a unifier across the cultural barriers. That’s what I learned: how sports unify all different cultures, different nationalities.”
For Zermouni, it was, “an amazing experience, and I would love to go back.”
Zermouni with the UNLV Rebels. Photo: Hakim Zermouni.
Since then, the former Number 19 pursued his childhood dream of working within the diplomatic world. After graduation in May 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he returned to France and pursued a master’s degree in international business management then a PhD in International Relations and Diplomacy. It was an experience he likened to the sports world. “Everything that I do, it’s linked,” he explained. “Sports cultivate effort, hard work, being resilient, and having a long-term vision about your objectives and how to achieve it.” These were the principles he applied to his graduate studies and career.
During his PhD studies, Zermouni interned with the U.S. Mission to the OECD and gained valuable hands-on experience that informed his thesis. After obtaining the degree, Zermouni published his dissertation as a book, Smart Power in Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy (L’Harmattan), which explored the interconnectivity between smart power, soft power, and hard power.
Zermouni continues to write and work in the field, most recently through a podcast series “Power of Sport” that explores the power of sports across multiple fronts. He also still represents France informally on the football field as part of the Équipe 🇫🇷 de Foot des Écrivains.
Mapping the Connection
From Paris, France to Las Vegas, Nevada
Further Reading/Resources
[E] Interview with the author, October 19, 2022.
[F] Power of Sport https://open.spotify.com/show/7hgwboOeIvURzpwCmedUeR
[E] Smart Power in Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy: A Systematic Approach to Diplomacy with the Gulf Cooperation Council, (L’Harmattan, 2016)
[E] “Looking In On: Soccer,” Las Vegas Sun, August 26, 2006.
How to Cite This Entry
Krasnoff, Lindsay Sarah. “Voices: Hakim Zermouni,” FranceAndUS, https://www.franceussports.com/voices/032-hakim-zermouni. (date of consultation).