Challenges facing Pakistani women’s football
Challenges Supporting the Pakistan women’s national team becomes difficult without feeling resentful towards the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Standards Committee, which seems intent on mocking the sport and the players.Originally scheduled to play a friendly match on 15 July as part of a hastily arranged tour, the women’s team now departed for Singapore on 16 July with the match taking place on 18 July. Last month, NC kicked off a boot camp for women. He announced the list of prospective squad members on 17 June, hoping to secure a friendly match.
At first, there were reports of a match against Kyrgyzstan, then the Maldives, but at the last moment the host country switched to Singapore. After participating in the first qualifying round of the Asian Olympic Games in April, where they finished third in Group E after beating Tajikistan 1-0 at Hisor Stadium, the players regrouped.But their journey was marred by defeats against the Philippines (4-0) and Hong Kong (2-0), the women’s World Cup-playing team, before eventually scoring victories. Unfortunately, problems of nepotism and lack of transparency persist within the Pakistani women’s camp.
The problems start with the selection of camp players, as PFF NC has not held any national women’s tryouts or tournaments this year, making it difficult to gauge the potential of the talent pool that exists in the country.While the high-performance athletes were noted during the national games, where the more experienced players excelled, coach Adil Rezky, who was present in Quetta for the selections, did not welcome them to the national camp.
The surprises continued with the announcement of the camp, as vice-captain Malika Nour was not on the list, despite her ease of leadership through the Olympic qualification.She was replaced by Kayla Siddique, who is based in the United States.In addition, PFF NC has replaced the team manager with Iman Ahmed, an experienced personality from the Karachi-based Rizqi Football Club.
On the other hand, the selection seems to have been a personal project of Captain Maria Khan. The French Football Federation announced the appointment of the Iraqi-Lebanese assistant coach Lynn Ismail on June 26 via social media. Rezky had previously faced accusations of ill-treatment and verbal abuse from several players who participated in the SAFF Championship last year. These players were later removed from future assignments for speaking out against abuse in a letter to PFF NC Football Team President Haroon Malik.n.
Published in EDP BLOGS on Aug 2,2023.
