Have a look at the bio, partner, gender and salary of footballer Barbra Banda
JK Rowling has accused the BBC of “spitting in women’s faces” when it named a Zambian player who was kicked out of a 2022 tournament for not meeting s*x eligibility requirements as its Women’s Footballer of the Year.
Among the five players on the shortlist, which included Spain’s Aitana Bonmati, the female Ballon d’Or winner, was Barbra Banda, who scored a hat-trick at the Olympics in Paris and is currently the second-highest scorer in the US National Women’s Soccer League this season.
Would it surprise you discover that;
1) A man hasn't won the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year award, a woman has, and,
2) The panel didn't include anyone from the BBC, the winner was voted for by the public.
Yet this has 16k likes
We are a doomed species of terminal idiots. https://t.co/S4ejMMHeEf
— Alfie | HITC Sevens (@HITCSevens) November 27, 2024
After being shortlisted by a group of people the BBC claimed were “experts involved in football,” including coaches, players, and non-BBC journalists, Barbra Banda garnered the most votes from BBC readers.
It is said that about 40 women’s football specialists from four continents were on the panel that selected the participants. They selected their top five female football players based on their worldwide significance, national influence, and athletic prowess. The BBC compiled the results of the panel’s independent, private vote to create a shortlist of five players who would then face off in a worldwide vote.
Who is Barbra Banda as Zambia player wins BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year, bio, age, height, partner, gender, goals salary and net worth
However, Barbra faced scrutiny during the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), where she was withdrawn from the tournament due to alleged high testosterone levels. Banda opted against accepting hormone suppression treatments, stating her hesitance about side effects with their being no official evidence of her being a transgender till date as has been claimed online.
Banda’s agent, Anton Maksimov, clarified at the time that she was never banned from competing at Wafcon, and that she had not undergone any gender verification testing either.
Some quick research will tell you that Barbra Banda is a woman (see Nick Miller NYTimes article for cited analysis).
Some quick research will tell you that the topic of using testosterone as a marker for fairness is women’s sports is a contentious one. pic.twitter.com/N88nvheUh7
— Helen (@helenfootball) November 26, 2024
“All players had to undergo gender verification, a CAF [Confederation of African Football] requirement, and unfortunately she did not meet the criteria set by CAF,” Andrew Kamanga, president of the Zambian federation, told the BBC’s Africa service during the controversy. As a preventative measure, Banda was disqualified from the competition last year after it was revealed by Telegraph Sport that he had never been tested.
Barbra Banda’s family and education
Barbra Banda who is a biological female was born in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka on 20 March, 2000. She is 5ft 10in tall. Around the age of seven, she started playing football on the streets. Her father, a football player, served as an inspiration to Banda and would push her to practice. Since there was no girls’ team at the academy she attended, she played with boys. She is single and unmarried.
Barbra Banda career
After Banda scored six goals at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Zambia stated that they knew the player had more testosterone than CAF allowed and that a hormone suppression course had been offered. However, the nation’s FA claimed that Banda and two other starting XI players, Racheal Kundananji and Racheal Nacula, who also excelled in the Paris Games, refused to take medicine due to possible adverse effects.
After joining Spanish team Logrono in October 2018, Banda became the first Zambian woman to play football in Europe. She went on to score 16 goals in 28 games for the team.
She joined Shanghai Shengli, a Chinese Super League team, a little over a year later in early 2020. In her first season, she scored twice as many goals as the second-ranked player, earning her the Golden Boot.
After her Zambia teammate Racheal Kundananji, she became the second most expensive women’s signing in history when Orlando Pride paid Shanghai $740,000 (£581,000) to sign her in March of this year.
Banda’s contract with the Pride is a four-year deal valued at around $2.1 million all-in, including bonuses. Her net worth stands between $1-5 million. She ended her first season in Orlando with 13 goals in the regular season and four in the play-offs, a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) post-season record as Pride won their first title. She was nominated for the Women’s Ballon d’Or and last week was named in the NWSL’s Best XI for the season.
Iam out of words to describe the feeling. All I can say is thank you to everyone, the organisers @bbcsport , the experts who chose me for the nominee shortlist and each and everyone of you who voted, thank you.#BB11 #BlessedChild #football pic.twitter.com/ODZHTuNA02
— Barbra Banda (@BarbraBanda11) November 26, 2024
In 2016, Barbra Banda debuted for Zambia as a senior international. She made history at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics by becoming the first female player to score two hat-tricks in the same Olympic football competition.
The Zambia captain became Africa’s all-time best scorer, male or female, in Olympic football history with 10 goals three years later in Paris, where he scored four goals, including a hat-trick against Australia in the first half.