KARACHI,
August 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Pakistani
women footballers are to play their first ever national championship
next month.
"We
will follow Islamic dress code and there will be male participation
only for technical purposes, so we expect no reaction from any
quarter," Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) technical director
Mujahidullah Tareen told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Male
spectators will be strictly barred from watching women play at the
championship, he added.
"It
would be just like other sports women play in Pakistan and PFF hopes
for a steady progress in women's football," said Tareen, whose
federation invited the most conservative federal tribal areas for the
championship.
"We
hope the premier national women activity will inspire up-and-coming
female footballers in the country and with the unprecedented patronage
of the PFF, we believe the event will create huge interest in the new
generation," a PFF spokesman said last Wednesday.
He
added that the championship will be a milestone for women activity in
the Pakistani sports.
The
tournament, to be played in Islamabad on September 21-31, is a result
of a FIFA directive, under which the football association's member
countries must spend 10 percent of the grant awarded to them on the
women's game.
Pakistan
staged its first women's football match in 2004.
Representing
Pakistan
The
PFF spokesman said the event will help spot talented players to form
Pakistani national team, which is set to debut in international
football by taking part in the qualifiers of next year's Asian
championship.
He
added that the 35 best female players will be selected from the
tournament to form the first-ever national women team.
"Football
is tough for females but I took up the game and who knows, one day I
will represent Pakistan at international level," Misbah Rasheed,
who plays for Punjab province, told AFP.
Pakistan
has women's cricket and hockey teams.
One
female athlete represented the country in each of the last three
Olympic Games.
Teenager
Rubab Raza became Pakistan's first female swimmer to dive in an
Olympic pool at the Athens Games in 2004.
Pakistan
has further allowed women to enroll at its Air Force Academy, which
segregates between female and male cadets in physical exercises due to
religious traditions.
