Genoveva Anonma was used to the
insults. For years, she had shrugged off the suspicions, ignored the accusations.
But
what she was not prepared for was the degrading ordeal that followed her
starring performance for Equatorial Guinea in the 2008 African Women's Championship. Continue..
Scorer
of the winning goal on home soil as her country became the first
team other than Nigeria to win the tournament, Anonma should have been
savouring the realisation of a dream. Instead she was plunged into a personal
nightmare.
As her
energetic and powerful performances prompted rival teams to accuse her of being
a man, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) chose the crudest of methods
to establish Anonma's gender.
"They
asked me to take all my clothes off in front of officials from CAF and the Equatorial
Guinea team," she recalls.
"I
was really upset, my morale was low and I was crying. It was totally
humiliating, but over time I have got over it."
Listen
to Genoveva Anonma on BBC Sportshour
Overcoming
adversity was nothing new to this most resilient of individuals.
Growing
up in Equatorial Guinea - where the 2015 men's Africa Cup of Nations kicks off
on Saturday - her desire to become a footballer made her an outcast at school,
and indeed at home.
"When I was five
years old in my village the girls didn't accept me because I just wanted to
play football, so I always used to play with the boys," says Anonma.
"My dad was
living in another city with another woman and my mum didn't want me to have
anything to do with football. She wanted me to study for a Masters, become a
teacher, or help children.
"I had some
serious problems with her. She told me she didn't want to see me again.
"Eventually, I
went to live with my uncle. He took me to the city so I could carry on studying
and playing football."
Anonma was signed by
her local team in the capital city, Malabo, when she was 15 in 2002. After a
year in South Africa with Mamelodi Sundowns, she joined FC Jena in the German
Bundesliga, where she was the team's top scorer for two seasons in a row.
However, after
Equatorial Guinea's run to the final of the 2010 African Championship they
booked their place at the 2011 Women's World Cup, and she became embroiled in
an all-too-familiar scandal.
Winners Nigeria, along
with South Africa and Ghana, accused Guinea of having three men in their team:
sisters Salimata and Bilguisa Simpore, as well as the team's captain, Anonma.
"You only need to
have physical contact with them on the pitch to know this [that they
are men]," said Ghana defender Diana Amkomah at the time.
As the story made
headlines around the world, Anonma faced up to the media to refute the allegations.
"These
accusations come because I am fast and strong, but I know that I am definitely
a woman," she said at the time.
Unfulfilled wish
As the row rumbled on
into the build-up to the World Cup, Equatorial Guinea sought to defuse the
controversy by dropping the Simpore sisters from their squad, although it was
never stated that their omission related to gender. And the allegations were
never proven.
Anonma, meanwhile,
kept her place and scored Equatorial Guinea's only two goals at the tournament.
To this day, Anonma's
biggest frustration remains that she has never been permitted to undergo
medical gender testing in the expectation of silencing her doubters once and
for all.
"I was hoping they would
call me to tell me they were taking me to hospital to do tests, but they never
did," she says.
"They
did nothing to me. It was just down to me alone to defend myself, to state that
I am not a man, I am a woman."
A woman
good enough to be named African Women's Footballer of the Year after her goals
inspired Equatorial Guinea to their second African Championship in 2012.
And a
woman good enough to line up in Germany for Turbine Potsdam, the six-time
Bundesliga champions and two-time winners of the European Champions League.
"I
think Germany is the best league in Europe," she says. "There are lots
of internationals and big-game players.
"But
on a personal level, it's not easy when you don't speak German very well. You
can't have many friends or talk
to people well."
Future ambitions
If
Anonma hints at homesickness, she is not yet ready to return to Equatorial
Guinea, where she is feted as a hero whenever she walks the streets.
Instead,
she's weighing up offers to play in France or Sweden, two other established
hubs for women's football.
Despite
the tribulations of her turbulent career,
Anonma remains a player at the summit of her powers.
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