West Brom Ladies ahead Mariam Mahmood has held talks with Pakistani officers about enjoying for the nationwide group, Sky Sports activities Information understands.
Talking forward of South Asian Heritage Month in her first interview with a serious platform, British-Pakistani Mahmood opened as much as Sky Sports activities Information about her love for West Brom, the place she has come by way of the ranks and established herself as an vital a part of the first-team squad.
That caught the eye of Pakistan scouts, who contacted West Brom Ladies about Mahmood’s availability to play for Pakistan immediately off the again of the story.
{The teenager}’s sole focus on the time was to proceed enhancing and creating as a footballer, and Sky Sports activities Information understands that place stays unchanged in the meanwhile.
Mahmood is a proficient former England Faculties worldwide and is extremely rated by West Brom director of soccer Dave Lawrence and supervisor Jenny Sugarman.
Pakistan Ladies returned to worldwide motion for the primary time in eight years once they performed on the South Asian Soccer Federation Ladies’s Championship (SAFF) in Nepal in September.
Mahmood has been enjoying the very best soccer of her fledgling profession, with the 18-year-old ahead scoring six objectives in West Brom’s final 5 video games earlier than the winter break.
A type of objectives got here towards Derby County at The Hawthorns final month, the place Mahmood grew to become simply the third West Brom Ladies’s participant ever to attain on the 122-year-old stadium.
Fellow British South Asian footballer Kira Rai was additionally heading in the right direction in that recreation, rounding off the scoring in a 3-1 win for the Ewe Rams.
Sikh-Punjabi attacker Rai added her voice to requires significant change to enhance variety within the ladies’s recreation in an interview with Sky Sports activities Information in October.
Rai informed Sky Sports activities Information: “It has to alter – and hopefully that point is quickly.
“I feel slowly we’re breaking it down bit-by-bit, however I feel much more work must be put in on the elite stage to make it a stage enjoying area for everybody concerned.
“Till you see a illustration of all backgrounds inside the elite stage of sport and soccer, the authorities are going to need to do extra to get to that stage – and even then it’s important to maintain pushing.
“The authorities have to do extra, all people must do extra to make it extra various at each stage of the sport.”
The Soccer Affiliation has been unable to supply any ethnicity knowledge on various illustration inside ladies’ and ladies’s elite pathways when contacted by Sky Sports activities Information.
The FA stated its key goals are to supply better entry for extra gamers whereas diversifying the expertise pool, pointing to its Uncover My Expertise initative and referring Sky Sports activities Information to its Asian Inclusion Technique replace and wider Variety and Inclusion technique.
Khan, Hanif and Malik be part of Pakistan coaching camp
Doncaster Rovers Belles sensation Nadia Khan earned a maiden call-up for the SAFF match and ended up making historical past after changing into the first girl ever to attain 4 objectives in a global match for Pakistan, throughout her nation’s win 7-0 towards the Maldives.
Khan is presently in Lahore for a Pakistan Nationwide Group coaching camp, the place she has been joined by fellow British-Pakistani gamers Amina Hanif and Zahmena Malik.
Hanif and Malik are attacking midfielders, with each linking up with Pakistan for the primary time, forward of probably being included in a four-nation match in Saudi Arabia subsequent month.
Hanif, 20, performs for Chesham United, and was a switch goal earlier this 12 months for former Harlow City Women boss Ruudy Yusuf, who put her identify ahead for consideration by Pakistan at worldwide stage.
Yusuf informed Sky Sports activities Information: “Amina has fast toes, a excessive soccer IQ and a real willingness to study and get higher. She has a fantastic angle and is destined to do nice issues within the recreation if she retains on doing the precise issues.”
Malik combines enjoying for Ladies’s Nationwide League Division One South East facet London Seaward with teaching for Bloomsbury Soccer, and celebrated her twenty first birthday whereas in Lahore earlier this week.
Yusuf added: “Zahmena would not realise how good she is and goes from energy to energy. She’s enjoying at a very good customary with a extremely good membership beneath some nice coaches with sturdy values. Zahmena is one other participant who something is feasible for if she will be able to proceed the trajectory.”
Trailblazer Mushtaq lands participant award in Greece
In the meantime, British-Pakistani footballer Aqsa Mushtaq has been named Most Priceless Participant on the Panhellenic Skilled Soccer Gamers Affiliation Awards.
Mushtaq, who hails from Bradford, has lately joined Crete-based Ergotelis after a powerful debut marketing campaign within the Greek high flight with Avantes Chalkida.
The 24-year-old is a graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne College the place she scored 13 objectives in 17 matches in her last season on the North Carolina-based school.
In 2019, Mushtaq was named South Atlantic Convention Participant of the Yr, serving to her safe a transfer to Napoli, the place she grew to become the primary participant of Pakistani heritage ever to hitch a ladies’s group enjoying in Italy’s high division.
How Sky is attempting to make change
Sky Sports activities introduced a partnership with Sporting Equals to assist the charity’s ambition of inspiring extra alternatives for British South Asians in soccer
Numerous ethnic under-representation has once more turn into a serious speaking level in ladies’s soccer since the Lionesses fielded an all-white beginning XI for each match of their gorgeous Ladies’s Euros triumph.
Former Liverpool striker Courtney Sweetman-Kirk says ladies’s soccer doesn’t have many function fashions for younger ladies from various backgrounds
Sky Sports activities recognised and started taking steps to handle the dearth of variety within the ladies’s recreation again in 2020 as a part of its £30m dedication to deal with systemic racism and make a distinction in communities throughout the UK.
Sky Sports activities has labored with dozens of present and former gamers from various ethnic backgrounds, and has tried to offer them a platform to share their tales to try to seize the creativeness to encourage the subsequent technology of feminine footballers.
A variety of elite and elite-potential feminine gamers and their households have additionally been supported with mentoring and entry to off-field developmental alternatives.
Earlier this 12 months, Sky Sports activities additionally partnered with the nation’s largest sports activities race equality charity, Sporting Equals, which has seen us assist participation throughout the nation, together with devising the ‘Seeing Is Believing’ occasion for century-old west London sports activities membership Indian Gymkhana.
British South Asians in Soccer
For extra tales, options and movies, go to our groundbreaking South Asians in Soccer web page on skysports.com and South Asians within the Recreation weblog and keep tuned to Sky Sports activities Information and our Sky Sports activities digital platforms.
