Malawi Scorchers attacker Temwa Chawinga’s transfer from Swedish outfit Kvarnsvedens IK to Wuhan Jiangda in China is the second most high-profile women’s football deal in 2020.
A Fifa Global Transfer Market Report for 2020 released yesteday indicates that Temwa’s transfer is second to Pernille Harder’s move from VfL Wolfsburg (Germany) to Chelsea FC Women (England).
Zambian Barbara Banda’s move from Spanish Women’s League outfit CD EDF Logroño to Shanghai Women’s FC (China) was the third high-profile transfer followed by Ellie Carpenter’s (USA’s Portland Thorns FC to French outfit Olympique Lyonnais).
Valérie Gauvin’s transfer from French side Montpellier HSC to England’s Everton was the fifth top-ranked move.
“These five transfers alone generated almost 75 percent of the total spending on transfer fees in 2020.
“Women’s professional football is still going from strength to strength. As the registration of international transfers in women’s professional football follows the same procedure as the men’s game, i.e. through Fifa TMS, we are witnessing consistent growth.
“Despite that the numbers are significantly smaller and the amounts of transfers and fees considerably lower in comparison to the figures in men’s professional football, there is still a clear trend towards a constant increase, even during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is probably safe to say that if the pandemic had not happened, we would have witnessed a much sharper rise in the number of transfers and an even higher increase in terms of transfer fees. Clubs in women’s professional football around the globe completed a total of 1 035 international transfers in 2020. This represents an increase of 23.7 percent.
“The 948 players involved in these transfers represented 94 different nationalities, which is a record high in comparison with the two previous years,” the report reads in part.
Temwa yesterday said she is humbled with the statistics.
“I will not let that get into my head because I am still learning,” she said.
The former DD Sunshine staris following her sister Tabitha’s footsteps whose 2018 transfer from Sweden to China was ranked the highest by Fifa.
She did not disappoint in her debut season in the Chinese Women’s Super League as she helped her club to win its first ever title.
