By Toby TAIWO
Nigeria’s biggest woman football export and most decorated woman footballer, and dubbed one of the most decorated women’s soccer players on the planet by the influential News magazine, Time, Asisat Oshoala, has made the 100 Most Influential People in sports 2026
Oshoala spent the past decade traveling the world and leaving her mark on the sport.
In 2015, the Nigerian forward became the first African player to compete in England’s Women’s Super League when she signed with Liverpool at age 20.
Four years later, playing for Spanish powerhouse FC Barcelona, she became the first African player to score in and win a UEFA Champions League final.
Playing in the U.S. in 2024, she was the first goal scorer for National Women’s Soccer League expansion side Bay FC.
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A six-time winner of the African Women’s Footballer of the Year award, Oshoala signed a two-year contract with Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia in 2025. Off the field, she runs a foundation and an academy program, working to ensure she is only one in a long line of African women’s soccer stars.
She’s also one of the only two Nigerians on the list, the other being Masai Ujiri, the influential basketball boss.
Nigeria and Africa’s highest sports franchise Executive in America, Masai Ujiri, also made the latest list of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026.
The list also includes the FIFA President, Gianna Infantino, lady golfer Nelly Korda, Stephen Curry, and 19-year-old Formula One driver Kimi Antonelli. There is also Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and women’s number one tennis player Aryna Sabalenka, amongst others.
The Time publication released on Tuesday, June 9 reads, “In May, less than two months after Masai Ujiri joined the ownership group of the WNBA expansion franchise, the Toronto Tempo, the Dallas Mavericks named him their new president, the latest stop for one of the most admired executives in sports.
“He’s tasked with surrounding 2026 NBA Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg, who is still just 19, with championship-level talent. “We have a little prince here. Now we’re going to turn him into a king,” Ujiri said in his introductory press conference.
