The Big Interview: Tabitha Chawinga
The Inter Milan hotshot discusses her tough upbringing in Malawi, her pride at her and her sister's progress, her hopes for African football and her journey to Europe...
One thing is evident speaking to Tabitha Chawinga, she is not doing what she is doing only for herself, but for her family, and indeed her country.
It’s even less evident the 26-year-old is also one of Europe’s deadliest strikers right now, with her 17 goals sitting her comfortably at the top of the Serie A goal scoring charts.
Chawinga is humble and speaks openly about the challenges she faced growing up in Malawi to get to where she is now, as well as how proud she is to have taken her journey alongside sister Temwa who has also become a professional footballer.
She speaks fondly of her fellow African stars paving a way in some of Europe’s top leagues, rather than create either individual or team rivalries, and she is passionate about the development of women’s game across Africa, not just her home nation.
“My mum, my dad, they slapped me if I went to play football…”
Chawinga grew up alongside four sisters in a small village just north of the Malawian capital of Lilongwe in the Rumphi District in the north of the country.
She is up front in admitting she came from a poor background, and on top of that, one where Chawinga’s desire to become an aspiring young footballer was frowned upon.
“My journey in football was hard at first,” she says. “The first time it was difficult. You play with the boys, you sit with the boys and many people think sport is just for the boys.
“My mum, my dad, they slapped me if I went to play football, but I thank my late cousin who encouraged me a lot in football. I have a lot to thank them for.”
Chawinga speaks of the times she had to work in a vegetable garden, collecting food for locals, from the age of just eight years old to “help my family, to help myself”, because her family had very little.
Malawi is ranked just 158th in the FIFA rankings and has 30 African nations ahead of them, and it seems unfair for a nation which houses such a talented striker as Chawinga, as well as her sister, that there is very little chance the world will ever see the pair on the biggest stage of a World Cup.
So, how did a young girl and her little sister, growing up in a country not even close to a powerhouse of the game, even within the confides of Africa, emerge on the European stage and end up at one of Italy’s biggest clubs, via Sweden and China?
It’s a complex story, but also a wonderful one, and shows how chance can launch the career of someone who may well have gone unnoticed had fate not transpired to link her to a young American woman who would provide the springboard for an unlikely move from home to Sweden.
“Two people facilitated my move to Sweden,” says Chawinga. “A girl called Marisa and the late Mr [David] Dube.”
Chawinga is quick to pay tribute to the former owner of DD Sunshine, the club which kicked off her playing career and one of the few at the time who took women’s football seriously, as sadly Dube passed away just two days before we spoke from a long illness
Marisa was the young American woman in question, working for a local NGO (non-governmental organisation) who was persuaded to play for DD Sunshine by two players who were her colleagues at the NGO.
When Marisa was transferred to Sweden by the NGO, she was quick to recommend the young hotshot Chawinga, who was only a teenager at the time.
“Marisa moved to Sweden and she started playing for a lower division team, Krokom/Dvärsätts IF,” she recalls. “She mentioned my name but the owner said ‘No, Malawi doesn’t have a good women’s team’. They didn’t think we could have good players.
“Marisa directed them to Mr Dube and he challenged them. He said ‘we will buy tickets and a VISA ourselves and if she passes her trials you sign her and you can give us back our money. If she doesn’t, you owe us nothing’. He backed me.”
It’s no surprise Chawinga speaks fondly of Dube, just days after his passing. Growing up in Malawi, her physical presence and raw talent from just 13 brought about violations of her human rights, but she was too young to understand what was happening when she was asked to strip during a game by an opposition team to prove she was a girl.
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The same happened at DD Sunshine a year later, and Chawinga has spoken in a previous interview how she “cried” and was “devastated” by what had happened, with Dube the man who stood by her side and lodged a complaint to the Football Association of Malawi.
Unsurprisingly, given her talent, Chawinga passed her trials with flying colours and Dube got his money back, and the striker won the golden boot in the third division with 39 goals in just 18 games during her first year in Sweden, where she became the first Malawian to play in Europe.
“It was difficult,” she says. “I was only 17. I had to wait 20 days until I turned 18 to be able to turn professional.
“I was so young. I knew nobody there, no parents, no friends. But as I said, I am from a poor background full of strong young women, so I saw it was my opportunity. The weather was cold, it was very different, but I was strong. The football was different, but it was a good quality. I went there to learn, but it was very simple for me to adapt to the actual football.”
She admits as she adapted to the weather and life on her own away from family and friends, she rarely left the house aside from to train and play.
In 2015 she was signed by second division side Kvarnsvedens IK and was once again the top scorer in the league, this time with an incredible 43 goals, leading her side to promotion and she followed that up with 15 goals in the top division a season later.
Despite Kvarnsvedens being relegated in 2016, Chawinga was still the top scorer in the league with 26 goals and was becoming one of Europe’s hottest properties.
Not only did she have an impact on the pitch, she was able to persuade the club to sign youngster sister Temwa, the only one of her four sisters who played football.
“Her success is my success and vice versa. She passed in my footsteps….”
With both having forged out successful professional careers, Chawinga is openly proud of not just her sister, but what they have both done for young female players in Malawi, plus the support they have been able to give back to their family.
“Now, people pay a lot of attention to us. Temwa has been successful, I’ve been successful. Her success is my success and vice versa. She passed in my footsteps. I moved to DD Sunshine and took my sister with her. When I left her there, I spoke to my boss in Sweden about Temwa and I had to challenge him about that too, but we took her eventually.
“In June 2017, I went back to play for the national team and that’s when Temwa signed. A lot of people give attention to us now but we need a lot of support and people to believe in women’s football for it to grow. In Malawi, we believe in school and education, not a football career. Every time a newspaper writes about Temwa or Tabitha, a lot of people believe and trust we can lead girls to play football.”
She pauses when pondering how to describe the pride she has in how successful both have been growing up in a poor family, with Tabitha now thriving in Italy and Temwa doing well as a professional in China.
“I’m really proud of my sister. We are two girls who play football. She is a top-class footballer. I’m in Italy, I’m doing well and I’m happy. Happy we have helped our family. We have helped our mum, our dad, our sisters.
“It’s good for us because we can both help our family. Maybe one month I will help them, maybe the next month Temwa will help them. If it was only one of us, it would be more difficult.”
After essentially leaving Temwa as her replacement at Kvarnvedens, Chawinga moved to China in 2018 with Jiangsu Suning and wasted no time in asserting herself on the Chinese Super League as she had in Sweden.
China was investing heavily in women’s clubs at the time, with the likes of Nigeria’s Asisat Oshoala also playing in the league in that time, and Chawinga out-scored the now Barcelona striker by seven goals to win the Golden Boot in her first season in the league.
A year later, 12 goals in 14 games helped Jiangsu to the title, Chawinga found herself once again recommending her sister to agents who were looking to bring players to China on behalf of clubs.
At the start of 2020, Temwa joined Wuhan, with Tabitha still at Jiangsu, and the pair would face-off against each other, only for the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Temwa’s city of Wuhan to bring huge disruption to the season.
“I experienced a few things in China,” says Chawinga. “They developed very quickly. They put everything into developing women’s football. They are always at the World Cups. It’s a good quality, it’s really good in Europe, but in China I found really good football and I enjoyed that experience.
“During COVID-19 it was difficult for every player and every person in China, not just people who played football. We were in quarantine a long time. It was a difficult life because we never played, we never trained.”
The league didn’t start until August and ended in October, played in a shorter round-robin group stage format in one centralised venue to avoid potential outbreaks around the country.
“10 teams I think it was. We made camp there, started the league up. We would play, rest two days, play, rest two days, play, rest two days…
“It was hard, but we did that for two months and finished the league.”
Little sister Temwa out-scored Tabitha by two goals, but it was fellow African striker Barbra Banda who led the way with 18 goals, double the amount of either Chawinga sister, before Tabitha joined sister Temwa in Wuhan for 2021.
It would be the first time the sisters had played in the same team since leaving Malawi, but would last just 18 months when the striker joined Inter Milan on an initial loan deal at the start of the current European season.
“It has been good for me to be here in Italy,” she says. “The league is good and to experience a more technical league, play and meet with different players, players who have played at the World Cups and it’s just been really good to come and play with top players.”
She pulls a wry smile when I ask why Inter, and there’s a further twinkle in her eye at the prospect of playing in the Champions League for the first time should Inter qualify, but is she more circumspect about the prospect of ever getting to play at a World Cup, with Malawi never even having qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations.
“It was my dream to play for a big club in Europe, or even in the USA. When Inter approached me and my club, I was so happy and I was so interested. It is one of the big clubs in the world. The football is really good quality here, that’s why I was really happy and thinking back about my whole life before this, I was like I am going to play for Inter Milan…yeah.
“We have good quality of players, a good coach and we fight now to play the Champions League, so it’s really good. The impact of this club has been great because I found a club where there is a lot of skill, a lot of talent. My team mates have helped me because without them I am nothing. My coach has helped me, the fans have helped me, the President has helped women’s football. They put a lot of effort in, they put everything in to help us which is really great, I’m really happy here.”
Chawinga says she “plans her future” when I ask about what might lie ahead, with no doubt clubs around the world continuing to pay attention to a striker who looks set to become the top scorer in another league after Sweden and China.
“In Malawi, we need to play for the World Cup. This is the first priority for me, but also Inter to play Champions League and I never played Champions League before. This is my plan as well. I’m sure I can stay a long time here in Europe, to play in different places, but I am in Inter, but it’s my plan to stay here a long time. Inter has really good people, it’s like my family. Everyone likes me, this is my club.”
Despite sitting four goals clear at the top of the charts ahead of Juventus and Italy forward Cristiana Girelli, Chawinga is adamant there are parts of her games to improve.
Her humility comes to the fore once again as she praises her team mates for the impact they have had on her, and amazingly she’d be just as happy assisting her team mates as she would scoring herself.
“Being a striker is about scoring goals and to also improve assists, to assist my team mates,” she emphasises. “I work hard every day, on the pitch, off the pitch. I work hard with my coach, the physical trainer, so that’s why maybe I’m scoring a lot of goals.
“Maybe I’m a good striker, but I’m still learning a lot. Like, now, without my team mates I’m nothing. I need my team mates to give me the ball and I need to assist my team mates as well. Being a top striker isn’t always the goals, it’s how you contribute to the club, to the other players. Maybe we focus our mind on scoring ourselves. If one day I don’t score, but I assist, it will be really good for me to be a top striker.”
She speaks fondly of her fellow Africans in Europe too, because all are paving a way for a continent where women’s football is very much still developing.
Nigeria has been a regular at World Cups over the years, whereas other nations have dipped in and out, with Morocco qualifying for the first time in 2023 off the back of a successful World Cup 2022 for their men’s team in Qatar.
“Maybe this is a message for our leaders in Africa to pay attention to women’s football, to pay attention to us…”
While Malawi is a long way behind their fellow African nations, Chawinga speaks of the “importance” of any emerging star player outside of Africa for those back home.
“We are still developing. [Rachael] Kundananji in Madrid, Oshoala is in Barcelona. My sister is in China, Barbra Banda is in China. They do a good job. Maybe this is a message for our leaders in Africa to pay attention to women’s football, to pay attention to us. If they pay attention, they can bring a lot of players to Europe and develop football.
“African people will work hard. African teams can go to World Cups and challenge and I believe we will do better and better. The new generation need to be like Tabitha, like Temwa or Barba, like Kundananji and Oshoala. I really believe we can have more like that.”
Her parting words read more like a plea, as she discusses what needs to be done and can be done back home in Malawi to try and help the nation realise its potential, with Chawinga adamant other players like herself and her sister will emerge from the country with the right backing, and time running out for a crack at the world’s biggest tournament.
“We need a lot of support. Malawi teams need to develop national skills in young girls for the national team. The leadership, people who work in football in Malawi, we need more support for young girls and the girls there now, including myself.
“For Africa, Nigeria qualify for World Cups, South Africa qualify. Our friends, they develop well in football but in Africa in general we need more support. Even if they qualify, they struggle to bring good results, so we need more support. We are lucky, CAF told every team in Africa to have a women’s team, so I hope that will help and teams will be supported.
“I believe we can improve a lot in Malawi. As of now, we have six players who are professional. Four players in Zambia, me and my sister. That’s it and I believe in the future I think we can see two or three players from Malawi come to Europe. This is my wish and I believe it will happen if we participate in more tournaments. We participate in COSAFA but it’s just for the south of Africa, participating in bigger tournaments like AFCON will allow us to develop and bring more players to the world.”