African Women Shine in the Chinese Super League

For the second year in a row, the Women's Chinese Super League (WCSL), China's professional soccer league, awarded its top prize to an African player. 20-year old Zambian forward Barbara Banda took home the Golden Boot this week thanks to an impressive 18-goal season with Shanghai Shengli.

Banda is part of a small group of young female soccer players that's taking China's professional league by storm. And fans in both China and in the players' home countries in Africa seem to be loving it.

No-one is creating more excitement this year than Tabitha and Temwa Chawinga, two sisters from Malawi who faced each other again on the pitch last Sunday for the title-decider.

Tabitha, 24, is Jiangsu Suning's top scorer this season and was the 2019 Golden Boot winner. Temwa, 22, also had a phenomenal season with eight goals that helped to power Wuhan Jianghan University to the top of the table.

The sisters are generating a lot of international media coverage, particularly back in Malawi, and even getting noticed by FIFA, soccer's international governing body.

While Chinese professional soccer doesn't come anywhere close to rivaling the popularity of European leagues or the CAF Africa Cup of Nations, it's nonetheless starting to get on the sports radar in some parts of Africa. Young players like the two sisters and Banda are getting their professional starts in Chinese clubs while aging male veterans like Obafemi Akinwunmi Martins get the chance to keep playing for huge contracts long after their European careers are over.

As African players gain fame in the WCSL and CSL, the popularity of these Chinese soccer platforms in Africa will invariably grow, because the Chinese-owned African pay-TV giant StarTimes beams two matches a day during the season into the 33+ million homes it serves across the continent.

At present, the China-Africa relationship is heavily influenced by contentious issues like debt, racism, and geopolitics, but on a soccer-crazed continent with a massive youth market, don't underestimate the power of sports to soften some of those hard edges.