Sports

Women’s team to play in Saff: PFF

Normalisation Committee announces participation; footballer Sahar welcomes decision

Natasha Raheel July 16, 2022

KARACHI:

“That feeling of listening to the national anthem when it plays before we start playing the match, that is what we play for,” Pakistan's premier midfielder Sahar Zaman explains why she would want to play again for the country at the South Asian Football Federation (Saff) Women’s Championship, starting August 29 in Nepal.

She has waited for Pakistan women’s team to start playing international matches again for eight and a half years.

But to her and players like goalkeeper Syeda Mahpara, defender Malika-e-Noor and striker Hajra Khan among others who represented the country in their last international outing in Saff Championship 2014, these years have been the worst the fate could offer them.

It was nothing short of a prison for the talented players who did not play in the international events, or had decent leagues at home just because the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) officials fought for the office and got the country banned twice in last two years, first in 2017 and then again in 2021 for the third-party interference.

Now, the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has finally announced that the women’s team will compete at an international event, the first since 2014.

The PFF, now being run by the FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee (NC) headed by Haroon Malik, confirmed in a press conference in Lahore that they will make all the efforts to prepare the team in a rather short period of time.

“It is a pretty good initiative. Finally they are giving us an opening after two very long years,” Sahar told The Express Tribune, as she was in the women’s football camp that took place in 2020, which was organised by the NC, then headed by Humza Khan, albeit that the training was for just conditioning only and not for any particular tournament ahead.

“This is a good initiative but it is important to give a chance to all the players and not just select few. In the last five to six years, many players have been working hard despite the bans, so it is important for the camp to be inclusive and meritocracy should be paramount.”

According to the NC member Shahid Niaz Khokhar, women’s camp will most likely be in Lahore in the Punjab Stadium near the PFF headquarters, but there are considerations for other venues too.

“The Saff championship is happening and we are also thinking about Abbottabad because of the altitude, since Nepal has a similar climate. We will be looking to make sure that the players who were a part of the national camp and the 35 selected by the panel of coaches earlier will be called back.

“We do not have the time for open trials. But, apart from the 35 players, we will add any other talented footballer who can have a recommendation from any of the licensed coaches. We are open to more players and this will give us a good pool to choose from. The coach can then pick three, four or five players they feel are good to join the initial list of 35 players, so that is one way to make sure that no one is left behind,” said Khokhar.

He further added that one of the highlights will be to make sure that the players get paid handsomely.

“Malik is really trying his best and at the end of the day we want to pay our players well as a way to show them the respect that they deserve. That is one of our targets to make sure the players feel motivated and respected for the international assignment,” said Khokhar, emphasising that there is a bigger budget for the women’s team.

He also clarified that overseas players are welcome but there is very short time till the championship next month and they would need to take care of the expenses of their trip to Pakistan on their own, according to the PFF policy.

While the PFF can have their choices, they must be clear to empathise with the players born and bred in Pakistan.

In the light of the struggles that the Pakistani women have faced and still persisted in the times of the ban and forced isolation with opportunities stolen from them, it does feel rather unfair for the overseas players to be given a priority. Many of them may not even understand the nuisances that the players born and bred in Pakistan do, and for once, maybe what an international event would mean to them will not mean the same for athletes coming from abroad,

Local players haven’t been fortunate since they have lived in Pakistan, a country ranked second by the World Economic Forum in the list of worst places in the world for women when it comes to rights and freedom.

Pakistan women's team made their debut at the Saff Championship in 2010.

FIFA reinstated PFF's full membership on June 30, 2022 as they lifted the ban after 14 months and 22 days.

Playing against the odds

It is women’s football that had paid the biggest price due to PFF’s incompetence when it comes to running the organisation as a professional body.

PFF’s political drama had only cascaded into further fury for players. Khan was replaced and later Malik came into the picture. In Malik's tenure, PFF organised the National Women’s Championship which was disrupted by the other group of PFF officials led by Syed Ashfaq Hussain Shah. Ashfaq was elected as the PFF president through Supreme Court-ordered elections in 2018, and he threw out Malik illegally taking over the PFF headquarters and consequently forcing FIFA to ban Pakistan due to third-party interference.

Sahar feels that this is the high time for PFF to make amends and be serious about the lives of the players.

Sahar wants to make sure that the newer players have it better, while also getting the opportunities to serve their country through football.

“I have a request for the NC,” said Sahar. “I request them that it is high time that people who have been playing but don’t have the means should get the opportunities. The newer players should not suffer like we did, but also this should not mean that they can ignore the players who have waited and sacrificed their careers throughout these troubling times.”

Sahar like others continued to train and play while pursuing education and job opportunities, while watching many of her colleagues and fellow footballers succumb to the societal pressure of girls marrying off at a certain age, and most families looking at the ban as a way to get their daughters out of football for good.

Sahar rued that many girls have quit football and sports in the last seven years.

“They should utilise our talents and resources left in us. I, Mahpara, Malika, Hajra, we are all closer to the retiring age, but we have got the game and we should be given the opportunities to play. We can also coach younger teams, assist them, mentor them. The national team should have a balance of experience and youth. We can teach them to heal and be a part of the way forward,” said Sahar.

For Sahar and other women footballers, the journey has been a traumatic one, but she remembers what the Saff 2014 championship felt like.

“Back in 2014, we were really coming into our own. We prepared well, we had a friendly tour to Bahrain where we played three matches, and we were improving, because by the third match we started to score.

“The 2014 Saff Championship saw us lose with lesser margins, instead of 10-20 goal hauls against us we lost to India and Nepal marginally and more gracefully. We defeated Bhutan and scored against Sri Lanka too, so we were improving. But then everything came to a halt and we never played again internationally,” said Sahar.

Lighten the baggage with support

Sahar added that even in the 2022 Championship Pakistan will need a lot of support from the people.

“It is important for everyone to understand that we are playing against a lot of odds,” she pointed out. “If we lose badly, they’ll only look at how badly we lost, and not the reasons why we have suffered so much and lagged behind.

“India and Nepal are strong teams, we can give all the opponents a hard fight, but we need support of the people, we need them to be more understanding.

“However, I know winning will mean something more.”

PFF to clean up the mess

Khokhar added that the press conference was to give a good idea where the NC’s plan of action lies.

He said that the preparation for the fresh elections will start from August, while FIFA Connect ID will run more efficiently which will help in registering the clubs and the players and will help in the election process and club scrutiny.

He said the case about the PPF’s accounts being held hostage by Shah’s group is still being litigated and five decisions have been taken in the legal course that are encouraging for the NC. Meanwhile, the funding is coming from FIFA now.

The PFF house had been vandalised therefore to get it back into the previous shape the NC will require about Rs30 million since there are no basic amenities such as electricity, gas or even fixtures in the restrooms along with the lack of furniture.

COMMENTS (2)

Rebirth | 2 years ago | Reply The article and the charlatans running the board are presenting the FIFA Connect program as some kind of a prerequisite to hold elections when in fact it s only a recently introduced pilot project by FIFA. The list of countries registered are abysmal. First country in Africa to register was Ghana and that was in early 2022. Member associations have been organizing leagues holding elections and even winning world cups without this program. The elected body can choose to register with the program if they so choose as it isn t a bare minimum requirement for the FIFA ban to be lifted. We don t need to be early adopters either. We re the last on the FIFA s rankings list. It would be great if these circus freaks wrapped up their shenanigans conducted elections with immediate effect why they were appointed and headed on back home. We need to deal with fake female tournaments before we worry about fake clubs. Thanks for your football morals enforcement services but we the savages will soon learn to civilize ourselves and evolve into a more culturally and socially acceptable society as per your standards ourselves.

Rebirth | 2 years ago | Reply Quite interesting to see women s rights and their empowerment being used as a facade to hide the fact that a group of charlatans whose job it was to simply conduct elections has now taken over from 2 500 clubs out of which 1 500 clubs have voting rights and a few of them have women s clubs too. Allowing one female team to play with a couple of players who have foreign passports at the expense of the entire sport and also the development of female players from the grassroots makes this a usurper committee imposed on the sport in Pakistan by FIFA itself. Why don t they focus on the woman s right to choose in their own country before they start destroying our football clubs and football itself They think we re too stupid to not understand that football grows at the grassroots level which are our 2 500 clubs. It won t grow now because they keep promoting 2 or 3 players who have no local or even foreign club affiliation but they argue their careers were stunted without annual international commitments. If football was banned in Pakistan which foreign clubs were they playing at because of their limitless talent that allowed them to score dozens of goals in the only tournament these charlatans organized Getting interviews with a handful of faces that they ve made familiar themselves doesn t prove anything even to an audience that has its mind shaped by cricket. Does Ronaldo play more games with Portugal or with his club How about cricketers Is it county cricket and global T20 tournaments including domestic first-class cricket that grows the sport and develops players or is it just one or two international games They ve been trying to convince everyone that the only thing that matters is international games and that too the female version. Quite rich coming from those who seem to be more interested in our women s football even when their stated philosophy involves the woman s right to do whatever she wants with her body which they can t seem to safeguard at home but seem more concerned with our women s right to play 2 international games a year. Why don t they focus on the rights of their suburban soccer moms to help prevent teenage pregnancies of their daughters first If they think foeticide is a right of course. But what s it to us There s no sport on the planet where two international games a year help it grow. In any given calendar year for a particular sport domestic and even international leagues help develop players. There s literally no logic or explanation behind what they re doing. They re destroying our leagues only so one female team can go play in an international competition Women in Pakistan have been doing this for decades. What did they achieve thus far Did they discover a gender in Pakistan like they discovered a continent History will tell you what that discovery entailed. Let s pray and hope they realize that a certain gender already existed in Pakistan before they discovered it and it was partaking in football before they came ashore. They re going around handing gold bricks in our country. Let s again pray they refrain from scurvy blankets because that s definitely next. All because they wanted to tell their kin they discovered the female gender in the land of the savages and now they ll help it play football. What s next Casinos The motivation to impose Punjabi culture language and even Punjabis themselves in every aspect of Pakistani life and identity has failed in the past and will fail again here. Punjabis aren t even the best at cricket and they ll never be good at football. These people have fluctuated from being Sunni and then Shia in Iraq and on occasion Kurd even though that was standard. We all know how that turned out for them. Now they have decided to become Punjabi in Pakistan but they chose the wrong sport. Although usually they choose the wrong league. The entire country knows that football is well-liked by Baloch then Pashtun and then Sindi. Then Gilgiti. Then Balti. Karachi alone has 400 clubs out of 2 500 even when the population is barely 10 . Twice as many clubs as their population. Punjabis aren t even in the top 5 when we barely have half a dozen communities. Keep your Khalistanis to yourselves or restrict them to India. We can discuss their Shia shenanigans on another occasion when they decided to pit the Quetta Hazara against the Pashtun using football as a medium and specifically their female players. All of Pakistan has been following their evil designs. Pakistanis must support Ashfaq Shah because he is a Punjabi who doesn t share their deceptive values that involves a couple of superficial photo-ops while ignoring everything else that actually matters. What will they say then He is Punjabi too. That should be all shouldn t it

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