MOLATsportgist

British-Nigerian player, Omorinsola Babajide has won the Liverpool Women’s team player of the month award for the month of January, the club has announced on it’s official website.

Babajide, a natural winger who has also been deployed as a central striker can represent Nigeria as well as England due to her dual citizenship, started all the three matches played by Liverpool last month, scoring four goals, all of which came against Blackburn Rovers Ladies in an 8-1 win in their FA Cup campaign.

The 21-year-old, who once scored 14 goals in a single game, during her days at University of East London, noted further that winning the Liverpool award was mostly down to the fact that she was able to notch more goals for the team within the past month.

While thanking the club’s fans for deeming her good enough to go home with the latest award as Liverpool Women’s Standard Chartered Player of The Month for January 2020, Babajide said it has encouraged her to keep aspiring for greater things with the Merseyside outfit.

She said: “I’m really honoured to be Player of the Month and thanks to all the fans that voted.

“I feel like our performances have been getting better all the time and two back-to-back wins show that. Now we need another three points and that would be massive for us.”

Could this be another Asisat Oshoala?

Josè Mourinho could not make his feelings any clearer in terms of how much he wanted a striker this window. Tottenham will play half the season without a striker, after Harry Kane picked up hamstring injury that have sidelined him until April.

It is not news that Harry Kane always get one big injury a season due to the work load as the only striker. Last season, former manager, Mauricio Pochettino had to play most of their UEFA Champions League knockout matches without his striker after picking up an injury. The team qualified for final without him (Kane) but not an easy task to do.

Mourinho revealed in his pre-match conference ahead of Manchester City clash in the Premier league this weekend that the team will be better with a striker. “I’m not expecting any players. The market is open though. I’m happy [with my squad[ but I have to answer yes it would be better with a striker.” – Jose told reporters.

He continues as he finds it difficult to hide his feelings on the current situation at the club: “Yes we would need a striker to have a better squad to face the challenges ahead. I cannot hide. If I say it’s an easy situation to play three competitions without a striker, I’m going to lie and I cannot lie. It’s important for us but if it’s not possible for us, it’s not possible.”

Which team plays in four competitions per season with a single striker? Tottenham is known to be a one striker team as former manager had to deal with only Harry Kane upfront for his five seasons at the club. Despite being ON and OFF due to injury, Pochettino stick to using Kane and managed to maintained top 4 and a UCL final last season.

Mourinho clarified on the kind of player he wanted as a striker: “It’s important that we are all together on this. We don’t want just a striker to be helpful now, we want a striker who would be good for us and good for our future.”

‘Working hard. Making progress’ -Harry Kane posted on his social media platforms.

You will have to agree that Jose wanted a similar player like Kane, to come in and share the striker role with him, similar to how Aguero and Jesus share the striker role at City. 

There is a recent athletic event that a trans woman just won. At the 2018 masters world track championship event, a transgender woman won the gold medal and as expected, the victory was met with mixed reactions. But this is not the first time this will happen and neither is transgender new in competitive sports. It dates back to 1975 and questions have been asked by academics, sports organisations, athletes and spectators whether transgender people should be allowed to compete in sport according to their gender identity.
An early high-profile trans-athlete was a tennis player Renée Richards. He transitioned in 1975 and started competing in women’s tournament a year later. He was forced to withdraw from the 1976 US Open when WTA and USTA withdrew their support, and 25 of the 32 cis-women withdrew from the tournament. In 1977, Richards was back to the Open after winning a lawsuit claiming “her” civil rights were violated.
Since then, policies have been put in place to ensure the eligibility of trans-females in women’s sports, one of which is the testosterone [C19H28O2] levels test. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Rule of Law 2016 review ‘transgender (MTF) must have testosterone levels lower than 10nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to competition.’

To put this in perspective , a medical article published in NCBI medical research by Endocr Rey in 2018 on ‘Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance’ indicates that the normal testosterone levels in an adult male (19 years above) is between 10.41 nmol/L and 34.70nmol/L while an adult female has between 0.52 nmol/L and 2.43nmol/L, exceeding 15-fold that of women . This implies that, according to the IOC regulation, a transgender with 9.99nmol/L which is significantly higher than a female upper limit – is allowed to participate in women’s sports.
This level of testosterone as well as other physical attributes such as muscle mass and strength, bone density, energy and competitiveness, Bone structure and maturation and expanded rib cage give a trans-female undue advantage over a cis-woman because the functions of testosterone in women different from that of men .
Professor Eric Vilian, a professor of human kinetics at the University of California, Los Angeles and a consultant to IOC medical commission stated in his YouTube ‘Fair game’ speech

“there is 10-20% difference between male and female athletes performance. We need to categorise with criteria that are relevant to performance. It is very difficult situation with no easy solution.”

NOTEABLE TRANS-FEMALE ATHLETES IN THE 20’s AND HOW THEY DOMINATED THEIR WORLDS:

Here are some of the noteable transgender athletes who have dominated womens sports;

• Fallon Fox (MMA): Married and had kid at 19. He worked in the US Navy before he transitioned in 2006. She won 5 of her 6 fights.

• Cece Telfer (Athletics): He competed in the men’s 400m hurdle and was ranked 390th before he transitioned in 2018 and raced in the women’s college 400m hurdle where she was ranked 1st.

• Dr. Rachel McKinnon (Cycling): He was a philosophy professor before transitioning in 2012 and competed at the 2018 masters world track championship where she won gold.

In some part of the world, there are regulations addressing the undue advantage that transgender athletes have over cis-women. Sports regulations in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, and Kentucky requires ‘trans-athletes to compete alongside athletes of their ‘assigned sex at birth’.
There is a big difference between gender and sex. Hence, the logical solution will be to separate women’s sports into cis and trans categories or adopt the tri-gender (female, male and trans) sport culture.

One of the well known women’s football advocate and a supporter of Confluence Queens Football Club Nigeria, Moses Nagogo Ball was honoured at the Naija Women’s Football League #NWFL 2019 Award Gala held at the Soccer Temple Hall Agege Lagos.

Hon. Bako bagged the special recognition award for his effortless support for women’s football in Nigeria. Mr. Bako is the brain behind the Save Women’s Football Nigeria campaign that saw the urgency in making Nigeria women’s league one of the best in Africa.

In his speech, he dedicated the award to almighty God and appreciated all the stakeholders. He also applaud the Aisha Falode led administration for a successful NWPL season despite all the ups and downs.

“I thank God for this award and all the stakeholders and organisers for honouring me with this award….. I must commend Aisha Falode and her board members for a credible and transparent NWPL season despite no sponsor.” – Mr Bako told molatsportgist

He urges other individuals to contribute to the betterment of the league without minding the ups and downs.

Super Falcons Failed to secure yet another Olympic ticket

Women Football in Africa cannot be fully discussed without a look at the “African Giant”, the title that comes with so much hard work and achievements.

The Nigerian women national team, the Super Falcons have won a record of eleven of thirteen Africa Women Cup Of Nation (AWCON) and also the current holder of both WAFU’B and AWCON Championship.

However, the Super Falcons some few days ago failed to secure a ticket for yet another Football event at the Olympics after failing to partake in 2012 and 2016 editions.

The team needed to outscore their Ivorian counterparts after a goalless draw in the first leg in Abidjan, but failed to score more than one goal in front of the teeming Agege fans who came all out to give them the maximum support needed.

The game started horribly for the Asisat Oshoala captained side as the visitors scored first through a fantastic set piece before the Barcelona star put one back before halftime.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE OF THE EXIT?

In September, there was an alleged contractual issues between the NFF and the Swedish tactician, Thomas Dennerby which led to the resignation of the former Swedish women national team manager.

This uproar in the administration led to the appointment of Christopher Danjuma as an interim coach. Danjuma coincidentally was interim gaffer in 2015 when the team failed to qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil.

Also, there’s was a change in captaincy after Desire Oparanozie was replaced by FC Barcelona forward Asisat Oshoala.

Oshoala become the fourth player to captain the team in a competitive year after Onome Ebi, Evelyn Nwabuoku and Desire Oparanozie. Oparanozie led the team to world cup where her side made a historic round of 16 appearance for the first time in 20 years.

It appears that Desire was stripped off her captaincy due to the protest staged in the teams hotel over unpaid bonuses, which was her right to as captain, thus she wasnt invited for the Olympic qualification games against the Ivorians.

Oshoala who expressed her disappointment recently said: “It’s very disappointing and a real heart break for us.” – Asisat told the BBC

Oshoala has never played in an Olympic that she anticipated so much for and continued with her disappointment.

“I actually thought this would be it. Sadly it wasn’t meant to be. Four years is a very long time for us.” – she said.

It’s truly heart breaking for the fans as well as the team captain apologises to the fan and hope 2024 will be a reality.

In September, there was an alleged contractual issues between the NFF and the Swedish tactician, Thomas Dennerby which led to the resignation of the former Swedish women national team manager.

This uproar in the administration led to the appointment of Christopher Danjuma as an interim coach. Danjuma coincidentally was interim gaffer in 2015 when the team failed to qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil.

Also, there’s was a change in captaincy after Desire Oparanozie was replaced by FC Barcelona forward Asisat Oshoala.

Oshoala become the fourth player to captain the team in a competitive year after Onome Ebi, Evelyn Nwabuoku and Desire Oparanozie. Oparanozie led the team to world cup where her side made a historic round of 16 appearance for the first time in 20 years.

It appears that Desire was stripped off the captaincy due to the protest staged in the teams hotel over an allegedly unpaid bonuses, which was her right to as captain, thus she wasn’t invited for the Olympic qualification games against the Ivorians.

Oshoala who expressed her disappointment recently said: “It’s very disappointing and a real heart break for us.” – Asisat told the BBC

Oshoala has never played in an Olympic that she anticipated so much for and continued with her disappointment.

“I actually thought this would be it. Sadly it wasn’t meant to be. Four years is a very long time for us.” – she said.

It’s truly heart breaking for the fans as well as the team captain apologises to the fan and hope 2024 will be a reality.

” Hopefully we can pick ourselves up. We can only apologise to our fans and try to build on from here. ”

We cannot dispute that the team is full of young talented players with international experiences which is why the sport minister Sunday Dare took to twitter and say investigation need to be made unto why the Falcons missed out on the Olympic.

Can 2024 come sooner? Hopefully, #France2024 would be a reality.