Khadija Kazmi will join 32 football enthusiasts from around the globe to attend FIFA masters course at De Montfort University, Pakistan is renowned for its football industry in Sialkot that exported over 42 million balls ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2014, but the country’s national team has never drawn much attention on field in international football.
It languishes at 201 out of 211 in FIFA’s international football ranking.
A 26-year-old Pakistani football enthusiast, who has secured a spot on the prestigious FIFA Masters course at De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K, aims to change this poor state of affairs of the sport in the country.
Khadija Kazmi is the first Pakistani woman to have secured a place among the 32 students selected for the class of 2018from among hundreds of young football enthusiasts from around the world.
Describing the urgent need for investment in Pakistan’s football, Kazmi says, “the situation has become very bleak – without a local federation to regulate the sport and in the absence of sports education at schools and universities level and of a national-level infrastructure.”
Although Pakistan has been affiliated with FIFA since 1948, it did not compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifying competition until 1989 – and then failed to qualify for Italy 1990.
This downward trajectory continued: the national team failed to qualify for South Africa 2010 when they were defeated in the opening round by Iraq 7-0. More recently, the team lost to Yemen 3-1 in qualifiers for Russia 2018.
Kazmi hopes that the education and skills she will acquire during the course of her studies will aid her mission to improve football standards in Pakistan and encourage other women to play the sport.
Source: Daily Times
