Women’s football: Balochistan United seek new talent [Express Tribune]

By Natasha Raheel – Express Tribune

KARACHI: Balochistan United (BU) Women FC are looking to recruit the best pool of talent available in the country this season after successfully gaining recognition through the South Asian Football Federation (Saff) Championship, which included 10 of their players. 

BU and national team manager Raheela Zarmeen has said that the players are more motivated after their November stint at the event.  “People recognise us now,” Raheela toldThe Express Tribune. “Earlier, no one would care about women’s football so being recognised is an achievement in itself.

“Now players come for practice with a lot more enthusiasm.”

According to the manager, one of the achievements of BU was to become the first women’s club in the country to bag a major sponsorship from K-Electric last year.

And they are now looking to sign Young Rising Stars’ Sahar Zaman and Model Town Football Association’s Shayan, but the transfers are not easy despite being them perceived as the richest women’s football club in the country.

“We wanted to sign Sahar and Shayan but their parent clubs aren’t releasing them. They are asking for Rs200,000 at least, which is unfair because the Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) approved NOC fee for their transfers at Rs4,500 each,” said Zarmeen.

However, the PFF has asked the two clubs to release the players, who have shown their interest in joining BU.

‘We need more exposure’

Raheela laments their uneventful calendar year which includes only two competitions: the inter-club championship in May and the national championship in September.

Since BU has been in the process of shifting their headquarters to Karachi from Quetta due to the law-and-order situation, things have become a bit more complicated.“We need more events generally. The men’s teams, including all the age groups, have 38 events this year, which comparatively is unfair,” the official rued.

“And now that we are in Sindh, the Sindh Women’s Football Association doesn’t want to see BU compete here.”

BU will begin their season next month with training.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2015.