By Archita Maverick
Pakistan’s senior women’s national football team returned to action after a huge seven-year break as the Pakistan Football Federation held a training camp and posted about the same thing on social media on Monday. The federation has not been able to work properly and is currently being run by an ad hoc committee appointed by FIFA.
The senior national women’s football team was out of action and last appeared in the SAFF Women’s Championship in November. Their last official match against Bhutan was 4-1. Since then, the women’s team has not played and registered in any official tournament after which FIFA forbade them.Their three-year suspension was lifted in December 2018, but they have yet to play a single match. It is the first time since 2014 that the women’s team has come together for a training camp.
The senior women’s team is currently not ranked according to the latest FIFA rankings, though India is ranked 55th in the world.
Despite the inactivity of the senior team, the U-16 and U-19 teams played in the 2019 AFC Qualifiers in their respective groups.
Not just the women’s side, Pakistan’s senior men’s national football team was also inactive between 2015 and 2018 and has no official record of matches.
The Pakistan Football Federation took social media to post pictures from the Women’s Training Camp and wrote, “Down but never out! You just can’t hold # Pakistan out of the game! After nearly 7 long years of inactivity, the Pakistan Women’s Football Team is back in action for the National Training Camp!”
