Loaned this season to Paris Saint-Germain, Tabitha Chawinga has a life story that is atypical to say the least. The Malawian striker told her story and the challenges she faced to achieve her goal.
Tabitha Chawinga’s journey towards her dream of becoming a professional football player has been no walk in the park. Originally from Malawi, the young woman, now aged twenty-seven, has had to overcome many challenges. Passionate about football since a young age, the Paris Saint-Germain striker first had to establish herself in an exclusively male environment. She also had to deal with backbiting and mockery from everyone, as well as violence. Especially that of his mother. She told her story.
In a long interview given to 20 minutes At the end of December, Tabitha Chawinga therefore agreed to discuss her particularly tense relationship with a mother who refused to allow her to play football. “ It was weird for people to see a girl playing football. My family was embarrassed, they were ashamed of the image it sent of them in the community. People talked behind our backs, they went to my parents to tell them that I was sleeping with boys. (…) My mother was ashamed, she didn’t want me to play football and she hit me to make me stop. He also sometimes deprived me of food so that I would stop playing. »
“I had never been so devastated”
But the player loaned to PSG by the Chinese club Wuhan Jianghan University also experienced the ultimate humiliation during a meeting in a girls’ school, when she was 13 years old. Her football level was such that she was asked to take off her clothes to prove that she was indeed a woman. She had opened up to The Guardian in August 2021: “ I had never been so devastated and cried at the embarrassment I had been exposed to. I wanted to go out right away, but somehow my teammates consoled me and I decided to finish the match. »
A terrible episode which recurred a second time, and which Tabitha Chawinga recalled for 20 minutes. “ They thought I was too good at soccer to be a girl. They wanted to prove that I was a woman. It’s hard to explain the humiliation I felt that day. But ultimately, despite these two very painful episodes, it was especially with the girls from my village that it was complicated. I know they talked behind my back all the time, they said horrible things to my mother, and my mother hit me. » Since then, and thanks to an unfailing mind and will, Tabitha Chawinga has taken quite a revenge.
