Former Arsenal Women forward, Asisat Oshoala, has used some of her Chinese wages to buy her parents a ‘mansion’ in her home country.
The 23-year-old spent 13 months with Arsenal after the club activated her release clause to sign her from Liverpool. Described by the then-Liverpool manager, Matt Beard as ‘one of the best young players in the world’, Oshoala made 13 appearances for the Gunners, scoring two goals.
She took the decision to move to Chinese side Dalian Quanjian F.C. at the start of 2017 and was widely criticised for chasing money rather than footballing glory, an accusation that seems incredibly unfair when you consider how little women generally earn in the game compared to the men.
Before she moved to China, Oshoala was said to be unhappy that, while she was on a salary closer to the WSL’s average of £35k-per-year (that’s £673-per-week to put it in footballing terms), players like Kim Little were earning a six-figure salary that also came with bonuses including a house and a car.
Oshoala now allegedly earns approximately £15k-per-month in China – £3.5k-per-week. To put it another way, that’s five times the WSL average wage.
Taking some of this cash, Oshoala has bought her parents a home, something she wouldn’t have been able to do if she had not made the move to China. She posted images and videos to Instagram which you can see by scrolling through this post:
About salaries in the WSL, the director of player management at the PFA, Matthew Buck, said at the time of Oshoala’s alleged complaint, “They range dramatically.
“Over the last couple of years more and more players and teams have gone professional and it’s still catching up the system really.
“They range from anywhere from £5000-£10000 on the lower spectrum for players who aren’t professional up to around the £35,000 mark for the top earners.”
‘Top earners’. They earn less a year than David Ospina gets a week!