APFA joins hands with Diya FC

Project focused on restructuring setup of women’s football in the country

KARACHI: Aspirations Pakistan Football Alliance (APFA) has joined hands with Diya Football Club in order to restructure the women’s football setup in the country.

According to the APFA chairperson Majid Shafiq, the agreement with Diya FC will help the club in not only improving its standard of players but also groom the coaches who will spread the sport around the country.

Diya FC will be following APFA’s curriculum to coach the players on the grassroots level with quality coaches.

“We want academies for women not only in Karachi but all over the country,” Majid told The Express Tribune. “One of the key points will be for Diya FC to help girls coming in from all backgrounds, while better players will have opportunities to go abroad as well. We will introduce player profiling and the APFA curriculum to improve the standard of women’s football in the country.”

The UEFA-certified coach added that women’s football in Pakistan has not been explored or worked upon in a systematic way, and this needed to be rectified.

Meanwhile, Diya FC founder Sadia Sheikh said that it will be the first time that women’s football will work with a certified curriculum. “In Pakistan no one ever thought of training female coaches and players on the same curriculum that is followed by our counterparts in Europe,” said Sadia, who has been working with in women football for more than a decade now. “The APFA curriculum is about improving the coaches and implementing professional coaching with the girls on the grassroots level through different schools as well.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th,  2015.

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