Nicole Oyeyemisi Payne (born 18 January 2001) is an American-born Nigerian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

and a defender for collegiate team West Virginia Mountaineers and the Nigeria women's national team.

Early life

Payne was raised in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

College career

Payne has attended the Oak Mountain High School in her hometown and the

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State College ...

in Morgantown,

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

International career

Payne made her senior debut for Nigeria on 10 June 2021 as a 90th-minute substitution in a 0–1 friendly loss to

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Personal life

Payne is the younger sister of fellow footballers

Toni Payne Antionette Oyedupe Payne (born 22 April 1995) is an American-born Nigerian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish Liga F club Sevilla FC and the Nigeria women's national team.Samuel AhmaduSevilla hand Toni Payne contract ex ...

and

Stephen Payne Stephen Payne may refer to: *Stephen Payne (energy executive) (born 1964), American lobbyist *Stephen Payne (naval architect), British ship designer *Stephen Payne, science fiction editor at ''Starburst magazine'', Visual Imagination and the ''Doc ...

. She and her sister Toni have played together in the Nigeria women's national team.

References

External links

* 2001 births Living people Citizens of Nigeria through descent Nigerian women's footballers Women's association football forwards Women's association football defenders Nigeria women's international footballers Soccer players from Birmingham, Alabama American women's soccer players West Virginia Mountaineers women's soccer players American sportspeople of Nigerian descent African-American women's soccer players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American women {{US-footy-defender-stub