Rita Chikwelu (born 6 March 1988) is a Nigerian professional

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

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Spanish

Liga F The Primera División de la Liga de Fútbol Femenino, currently known as Liga F (finetwork Liga F for sponsorship reasons), is the highest level of league competition for women's football in Spain. It is the women's equivalent of the men's La L ...

club

FC Levante Las Planas Fútbol Club Levante Las Planas (Catalan: ''Llevant Les Planes'') is a Spanish football club from Sant Joan Despí, Barcelona currently playing in Liga F. History Levante Las Planas was founded in 1983 in Las Planas district as a merge of loca ...

and the Nigeria women's national team. She previously played for Swedish sides

Umeå IK Umeå IK () is a professional association football club based in the city of Umeå, in northern Sweden, and currently playing Damallsvenskan, the first tier of women's football in Sweden. They were one of the most successful football clubs in ...

and

Kristianstads DFF Kristianstads DFF is a women's association football club from Kristianstad, Sweden. The club is affiliated to the Skånes Fotbollförbund. History The original club Wä IF played in from 1989 to 1994 in the Damallsvenskan. The club was reformed ...

Club career

From 2006 to 2009, Chikwelu played in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

for

FC United Football Club United of Manchester is a semi-professional football club based in Moston, Manchester, England, that competes in the , the seventh tier of the English football league system, and plays home matches at Broadhurst Park. Found ...

. She was the top scorer of Finnish women's league

Naisten Liiga The Kansallinen Liiga ('National League') is the premier division of women's football in Finland. It was previously called the Jalkapallon naisten SM-sarja ('Women's Football Finnish Championship Series') during 1974 to 2006 and the Naisten Lii ...

in 2009 with 22 goals. Chikwelu spent seven seasons with

from 2010 to 2016, but left upon the club's

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

and joined

on a two-year contract.

International career

Chikwelu participated in the FIFA U-20 World Cup from 2004 to 2008 and made her senior national team debut in 2007 at the FIFA women's World Cup. She was a member of the Nigerian Olympic team which participated in the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

in China and a member of the Nigerian squad in the 2011 FIFA women's World Cup.

Honours

African Women's Championship The Women's Africa Cup of Nations, also called the TotalEnergies Women's Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons and abbreviated to WAFCON, is an international women's football competition held every two years and sanctioned by the Confe ...

Winner:

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

References

External links

*
FIFA.com – Article on Rita Chikwelu

* * 1988 births Living people Nigerian women's footballers Nigeria women's international footballers 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup players Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers of Nigeria 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup players Damallsvenskan players Umeå IK players Kristianstads DFF players Kansallinen Liiga players FC United (Jakobstad) players Women's association football midfielders Women's association football forwards 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup players Nigerian expatriate women's footballers Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Finland Expatriate women's footballers in Finland Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Sweden Expatriate women's footballers in Sweden Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate women's footballers in Spain {{Nigeria-women-footy-bio-stub