Municipal de Laayoune and Kenya forward Violet Nanjala drives forward with the ball during their Throne Cup match against Moroccan Division Two side Ain Atiq Temara at Moulay Rachid Stadium in Laayoune on Sunday. Nanjala leads the Moroccan Women’s Championships Division One top scorers chart with 21 strikes.
For the second successive season, Kenya women’s football team player Violet Nanjala has led in the goal scorers’ chart in Morocco’s top women’s football league, Moroccan Women’s Championship Division One League, taking home the Golden Boot Award.
She plays for Municipal de Laayoune, a top-tier league team based in Laayoune, some 1,158 kilometres south east of Rabat.
On Thursday, the 23-year-old Nanjala, capped a remarkable season with a seven-goal performance in her team’s 12-0 win over relegated club CSST Tamara, finishing the season on 28 goals and 14 assists in 26 matches.
Despite Nanjala’s contribution, Laayoune finished the season in sixth place with 45 points, 27 points behind champions AS Forces Armées Royales (ASFAR).
Nanjala, who moved to Laayoune in 2022, still considers the performance modest.
“I have had a slow start to the season. I had targeted to score 20 goals this season. Towards the end, I realized that I could exceed that target, which motivated me to push harder,” Nanjala said.
She also won the Golden Boot with 23 goals in the 2022/23 season, her debut season in the league, after joining the club from National Women Super League (NWSL) Trans Nzoia Falcons.
Harambee Starlets striker Violet Nanjala.
Yolande Gnammi from Benin who plays for Ittihad Tanger, and DR Congo’s Salimata Diarra from RS Berkane are tied for second place with 20 goals each.
Nanjala, whose contract with the club expires on June 5th after a three-season stint with the Laayoune-based side, including a one-year extension to her initial two-year contract signed in 2022/23, has decided to leave the club.
“I’ve served Laayoune for three seasons and will join another club soon. I will announce the name of the club later.”
In the ending season, Nanjala scored three consecutive hat-tricks, notably in her team’s 3-1 victory against Raja Ain Harrouda on April 27, and in a 4-3 victory against Renaissance Sportive Berkane on May 10.
Laayoune is also competing for the title in national knock-out football tournament Throne Cup, and will face Wydad in the semifinals tomorrow. They had lost last year’s final 4-3 against Asfar.
Nanjala attributes her success to diligence and strict observance of her training schedule.
“I adhere to the team’s schedule, and I leave the training complex after training like everybody else.”
Laayoune has foreign players from Benin, Mauritania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She also made her debut for Harambee Starlets in 2021 under coach Charles Okere, who had replaced David Ouma, during the build-up to Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) qualifiers against Uganda.
The eldest in a family of five children (three girls and two boys), Nanjala neither speaks Arabic, French nor Spanish, languages which are widely spoken in Morocco, yet she still understands instructions from her coach who does not understand English language.
“Our coach is local (Moroccan) and doesn’t understand a word of English, but football is one language, so I understand his instructions on the pitch.”
Morocco is poised to co-host the 2030 Fifa World Cup with Spain and Portugal, and the Under-17 Fifa Women’s World Cup from 2025 to 2029, the postponed 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament later in the year, and the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations tournament, and Nanjala says Kenya should emulate Morocco with regard to preparing match venues for tournaments.
“Modern football pitches are being constructed here, enabling the country to host multiple tournaments simultaneously because of improved facilities. Roads and well-equipped, and hospitals are also under construction here,” she observes.
She reckons Kenya needs to nurture own football talent with improved infrastructure and top-class training facilities to grow the local game.
She hopes to one day play for Barcelona Women’s team in Spain.
