Briga News Nigeria
Onome Ebi (born May 8, 1983) is a professional footballer from Ijaw who plays as a centre-back for Belarusian Premier League club FC Minsk and the Nigeria women’s national team, Super Falcons.
She has participated in five FIFA World Cup competitions which makes her to be the first African footballer to do so in 2019.
EARLY LIFE:
Onome Ebi was born on the 8th of May, 1983, in Lagos, which falls among the states in the South Western region of Nigeria.
CAREER:
Professional Career:
Before moving to Pite IF and Djurgrdens IF in Sweden’s Damallsvenskan, Onome Ebi began her career playing for Bayelsa Queens FC in the Nigerian Women’s Championship.
She later competed in the First League for Turkish teams Düvenciler Lisesispor and Ataşehir Belediyespor. While playing for Ataşehir Belediyespor in August 2012, she made her Champions League debut.
In 2013, Ebi played for Sunnan SK in the Swedish Damallsvenskan once again before moving to Belarus to play for FC Minsk in the Belarusian Premier League. She was a part of the team that twice won the Belarusian Women’s Super Cup, the Belarusian Women’s Cup, and the Belarusian Premier League while she was there.
Due to its significance to her, Ebi typically gets to wear the team’s number five shirt throughout both club and international matches. The jersey number was already taken when she got to Minsk, so she requested the number 55 instead. She got a contract with Henan Jianye of China’s second division in 2018.
International Career:
Ebi competes for Nigeria’s national team.
On 6 July 2019, she became the first African Footballer to play in five Fifa World Cup Tournaments, taking part in the 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015, 2019 editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Ebi participated in the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 iterations of the African Women’s Championship with the Nigerian team, which went on to win the competition four times in 2010, 2014, 2016, and 2018.
Honours:
Club
Ataşehir Belediyespor
2013: Turkish Women’s First Football League
2012: Turkish Women’s First Football League
FC Minsk
2014: Belarusian Premier League
2014: Belarusian Women’s Cup
2014: Belarusian Women’s Super Cup
2015: Belarusian Women’s Super Cup
International
Nigeria
2010: African Women’s Championship
2014: African Women’s Championship
2016: African Women’s Championship
2018: African Women’s Championship
Individual
2018: NFF-Aiteo Female Player Of The Year
2011 – 2020: IFFHS CAF Woman Team of the Decade.
