A welcome effort is afoot to help talented footballers from Lyari, with a small delegation from the professional English club Swindon Town to arrange for the travel of a coach and some players so that they can train with the lower-division team. Possibly completing the Cinderella story is the fact that Swindon Town intends to offer contracts to some of the players. While it may not be a top team or a top league — Swindon plays in the fourth tier of English football — it is still the biggest opportunity in recent memory that Pakistan-based players have gotten to get noticed by European clubs.
Notably, Swindon will be covering the players’ training and living expenses during their two-year stay in England, which opens up the door for several talented players who could not otherwise afford room and board to focus on their skills and technique. The players had already been training under an English coach after Swindon Town and Karachi Football Club signed an agreement last year. The desire to help the boys succeed also goes beyond the English team, as the Pakistan American Cultural Centre has helped arrange language classes for the players. No one expects the players to be immediately impactful, but hopefully, by next year, we might see some names in the starting lineup, and maybe even playing in higher-profile leagues in the future.
Simply having a few players break into a quality league would do wonders for Pakistan’s reputation, and could encourage more teams to set up similar scouting arrangements. Several African countries, despite having football infrastructure just as bad as Pakistan’s have benefitted from arrangements where young talent is plucked by European teams to develop and play in the continent, while still being available for their national teams. All it takes is one breakthrough player for the floodgates to open, and inspire millions of children to take more interest in the sport and thus encourage more healthy activities for our youth.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2023.
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