In-form Malawian female striker, Tabitha Chawinga has wondered why she has yet to win the prestigious CAF African Women Footballer of the Year Award despite her consistency in recent years.
Chawinga, who is on loan at Paris Saint-Germain-PSG, has already scored two goals in five games for the French club, including one against Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League, making her the first Malawian female to do so.
She was instrumental in her team’s 3-1 win over Manchester United in the second leg last night, assisting on the second goal as they qualified for the Champions League group stage.
Tabita’s journey from Malawi to Europe
The 27-year-old striker, who started her career at DD Sunshine in Malawi, went to Europe in 2014. She joined Swedish third-division club Krokom/Dvärsätts IF.
A year later, Chawinga joined the second-division club Kvarnsvedens IK. She scored 43 goals to earn the top scorer award and her club’s promotion to the Damallsvenskan, the top division.
In 2018, she moved to Jiangsu LFC, winning the Chinese Women’s Super League’s Player of the Year award for two consecutive seasons before joining Wuhan in 2021.
She was then loaned to Inter, where she finished last season as the top scorer in Serie A with 23 goals before joining PSG.
Chawinga has won the top scorer award in every country where she has played club football. But she has yet to win the CAF Women’s Player of the Year award.
“I don’t know why I haven’t won it. Maybe it is because I am from Malawi,” she told the Guardian. “And the fact that our national team has not played in major competitions but I think I deserve it.”
She hopes to remain consistent and she is confident that she can finally take home the award this year.
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Chawinga will face competition from the holder of the award, Asisat Oshoala of Nigeria, who has won it a record six times, and Zambia’s Racheal Kundananji, who netted 33 goals last season for both club and country more than any African female player and finished as the second-top scorer in the Spanish league with 25 goals.
Oshoala won the Champions League with Barcelona and, like Kundananji, scored a goal in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The prestigious CAF Awards will be held on December 11, 2023, in Morocco.
