​She was un­der­rat­ed and de­nied the recog­ni­tion her tal­ent and achieve­ments de­served. She didn't fit the im­age tra­di­tion­al Eu­rope want­ed. They were de­light­ed to ben­e­fit from her tal­ent, skill, prowess, and per­for­mances; how­ev­er, she spoke up against racism. Af­ter scor­ing a goal, she marked the oc­ca­sion by bow­ing her head and rais­ing a sin­gle, gloved fist in a Black Pow­er salute.

​Khadi­ja Moni­fa "Bun­ny" Shaw is a Ja­maican pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller who plays as a for­ward for Women's Su­per League (WSL) club Man­ches­ter City and cap­tains the Ja­maica women's na­tion­al team. She is a bea­con of hope not just for Ja­maica, but the en­tire Caribbean. Her life sto­ry is one that can in­spire every Caribbean cit­i­zen, young and old. For sure, she has done Ja­maica proud. How­ev­er, she is a role mod­el not just for Ja­maica.

In the con­text of glob­al women's foot­ball, Shaw is now pos­si­bly the high­est-paid fe­male foot­baller in the world. She was born in Span­ish Town, Ja­maica, to George Shaw, a shoe­mak­er, and her moth­er Mon­i­ca, a chick­en farmer. She is the youngest of 13 broth­ers and sis­ters. She is a Ja­maican foot­baller de­vel­oped out­side the Eu­ro­pean ecosys­tem.

​For those who have been fol­low­ing the Shaw/Man City saga, Man City, for some in­ex­plic­a­ble rea­son, were re­luc­tant to of­fer Shaw what she was worth. To her cred­it, Shaw did not al­low her­self to feel in­sult­ed and dis­re­spect­ed to the point of dis­trac­tion. She re­mained pro­fes­sion­al and con­tin­ued to score goals, lead from the front, and pro­vide pos­i­tive en­er­gy in the dress­ing room, on the train­ing field, and with fans. She showed char­ac­ter, in­tegri­ty, and loy­al­ty.

The truth–if an ES­PN re­port is to be be­lieved–is that it had al­ways been Shaw's de­sire to re­main at City, and she was close to sign­ing a new deal in March. How­ev­er, ne­go­ti­a­tions stalled, and sources told ES­PN that a low-ball ini­tial of­fer failed to com­pete with com­pet­i­tive of­fers com­ing from across the globe.

​Chelsea emerged as a fron­trun­ner, with sources ad­mit­ting the for­mer WSL cham­pi­ons had tabled a £1 mil­lion an­nu­al salary and a longer con­tract length.

​Though City won the WSL for the first time in a decade–Shaw's 21 goals played a vi­tal role–it ap­peared as if the Ja­maica in­ter­na­tion­al would de­part on a free trans­fer, with City un­able to of­fer a com­pet­i­tive pack­age. Sources added that the Man­ches­ter club be­gan look­ing at al­ter­na­tive op­tions af­ter ne­go­ti­a­tions end­ed.

​How­ev­er, in the days af­ter win­ning the league, sources told ES­PN that City made a re­mark­able U-turn on their de­ci­sion. Pan­ick­ing af­ter the back­lash from across women's foot­ball when the news of Shaw's ex­pect­ed de­par­ture broke, the club was forced to re­con­sid­er and adapt their wage struc­ture to match Chelsea's terms, some­thing they had been un­will­ing to do pre­vi­ous­ly.

Both ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal pres­sure played a role, sources said, and City met with Shaw per­son­al­ly. In oth­er words, the Man­ches­ter City board of di­rec­tors were pre­pared to let Shaw leave.

​Ac­cord­ing to The New York Times, Khadi­ja "Bun­ny" Shaw’s new four-year con­tract with Man­ches­ter City will see the strik­er earn a min­i­mum of £1.6 mil­lion ($2.15m USD) per year, ex­clud­ing per­for­mance-re­lat­ed bonus­es.

The deal sees Shaw earn a base an­nu­al salary of £1m ($1.4m). Guar­an­teed year­ly add-ons will lift it to be­tween £1.6m and £1.7m ($2.3m), ac­cord­ing to sources fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter and doc­u­ments seen by The Ath­let­ic. Shaw’s to­tal year­ly pack­age could reach be­yond £1.7m if cer­tain per­for­mance-re­lat­ed bonus­es are met.

In the world of pro­fes­sion­al sports, ap­pre­ci­a­tion is not the same thing as recog­ni­tion. Recog­ni­tion is shown by the dol­lar signs on your con­tract. The best in the world are paid in recog­ni­tion that they are the best in the world. Bun­ny Shaw is one of the best in the world.