Diya Women Football Club ( ur, ), also referred to as Diya W.F.C., Diya WFC, Diya FC, Diya, Diya Women FC, or DWFC, is a

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known simply as women's football or women's soccer, is a team sport of association football when played by women only. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries and 176 national te ...

and

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

club based in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

. ''Diya'' means

lamp Lamp, Lamps or LAMP may refer to: Lighting * Oil lamp, using an oil-based fuel source * Kerosene lamp, using kerosene as a fuel * Electric lamp, or light bulb, a replaceable component that produces light from electricity * Light fixture, or ligh ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

established in 2002. Diya W.F.C. has no affiliation to any men's club.

History

Diya W.F.C. was founded in 2002 by Sadia Sheikh, a

physical education Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorati ...

teacher, founder and secretary general of Sindh Women Football Association since 2006 and first

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

-certified football administrator in Pakistan, in 2011, and the only one so far. It was recognized by the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) in 2006. Since 2010, Diya W.F.C. is a permanent member of the PFF committee, among 29 members. In September 2015, Diya W.F.C. was the first women’s football club to sign an agreement with Aspirations Pakistan Football Alliance (APFA) and follow their certified curriculum to improve standards of training for both coaches and

players Players may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Players'' (1979 film), a film starring Ali MacGraw * ''Players'' (2012 film), a Bollywood film * ''Players'' (Dicks novel), a novel by Terrance Dicks, based on the television series ''Doc ...

. Trainings take place on a ground located in

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

, next to

Bagh Ibne Qasim Bagh Ibne Qasim (Urdu: ; in reference to Muhammad bin Qasim) is a beachside park in Karachi, Pakistan. Location The park is located near the Clifton Beach, Karachi and is Karachi's largest urban park, covering . The northern edge begins at ...

beachside park. Like other independent women's clubs in Pakistan, Diya W.F.C. has neither sponsorship nor affiliation to a corporation or a

public administration Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment (public governance), management of non-profit establ ...

, and is therefore financially supported by the owner, family and friends. Diya W.F.C. is also a competition organizer, such as the 1st Chase Up All-Karachi

Under 23 Under-23 sport is a competitive age category grouping within sports for athletes under the age of twenty-three. An extension of age categories found in youth sports, the under-23 category is for adults who are still in a developmental stage within ...

Girls Futsal Tournament 2021, held in February 2021 in partnership with the

Sindh Women Futsal Association Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

. Beside women's football, Diya W.F.C. is a football promoter, offering mixed gender practice or setting up academies for children across

Sindh Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

. In 2011, Diya W.F.C. was featured for its pioneer role in a documentary produced by the

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...

Players

As of July 2017, 2,000 girls and women have been trained by Diya. In 2018, students and players age range was from 6 to 27.

Present players

Kiran Qureshi is the only Diya's player to be a member of the

Pakistan women's national football team The Pakistan women's national football team is the female representative football team for Pakistan. The team was formed in 2010 and has not yet entered the AFC Women's Asian Cup or FIFA Women's World Cup, but has competed in four editions of ...

(PWNFT), as attacker, since 2020. Shumaila Gulab Hussain, Marium Zehri and Zunaira Shah played for the PWNFT and represented their country at the

South Asian Football Federation South Asian Football Federation (SAFF), founded in 1997, is an association of the football playing nations in South Asia and is part of the larger Asian Football Confederation. The members of the association are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Mald ...

and

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly in ...

events in

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

and

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

in 2018. Shumaila Gulab Hussain and Marium Zehri are defenders within the under-16 PWNFT.

Past players

Misha Dawood was a 19-year-old Diya W.F.C.

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

and a second year

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

student who died in a plane crash on 28 July 2010. She was considered a "promising star". On 4 August 2010, the best woman player award of the National Women Football Championship was renamed in her honor by the PFF. The National Women Under-16 Championship was also renamed in her honor. Hajra Khan,

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

and

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

of PWNFT, played with Diya as a professional from 2008 to 2014, prior to moving to

Balochistan United W.F.C. Balochistan United Women Football Club is a Pakistani women's football club based in Quetta. The club competes in the National Women Football Championship. History In 2004 Rubina Irfan founded Balochistan United around her three daughters and ...

Mehwish Khan Mehwish Khan (born 1990) is an international footballer from Pakistan. She was the first woman footballer to score an international goal for Pakistan.

, also playing as defender for the PWNFT, started playing with Diya W.F.C. prior to joining WAPDA women's club in 2011. Along with Hajra Khan and Mehwish Khan, Marium Leghari, a Diya player, represented Pakistan in the first women’s South Asian Football Federation Championship held in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

in 2010. Rukhsar Rashid, who joined Diya W.F.C. in 2009 and is now coach of the club, was also a defender within the national team. Among the PWNFT, Afshan Altaf, Qurratulain Ashraf and Fatima Ansari started playing with Diya W.F.C. Manizeh Zainli, secretary general of PFF (2020), and the first women to hold this position, played football with Diya W.F.C. for two years as an

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

Performance

Football

PFF competitions

The club competes within three PFF championships: under-16, under-19 and open age: * National Women Football Championship Diya W.F.C. was ranked 2nd in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

and

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, 3rd in

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

and 4th in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. Hajra Khan won the Misha Dawood Trophy in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

. * Shahlyla Baloch National Under-16 Women Football Championship It earned the 3rd position in 2015, in 2018 and in 2019. In 2014, the club was rewarded with the

fair play Fair play or Fairplay usually refers to sportsmanship. Fair play or Fairplay may also refer to: Media * ''Fair Play'' (1925 film), an American silent film * ''Fair Play'', a 1972 TV movie starring Paul Ford * ''Fair Play'' (2014 film), a Czech ...

trophy and prize.

Other competitions

Diya Women Football Club - competitions abroad

The State Bank of Pakistan held its own women's championship, in which Diya W.F.C. earned the 3rd place during the 4th edition in 2016.

International youth friendly competitions

Variations of football

Futsal

The club won the All-Pakistan Women Futsal Championship 2010, defeating Eco Adventure Club Islamabad (1-0), and Fatima Ansari and Kiran Yousuf were declared best players of the tournament. In 2021, Diya W.F.C. won the All Karachi Under-23 Girls Futsal Tournament, among eight teams, defeating Karachi Ladies FC (8-2), and Shumaila Gulab Hussain was declared as one of the best players.

Five and six-a-side football

Diya W.F.C. also participates to

Leisure Leagues Leisure Leagues is an franchise of five and six-a-side football leagues primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. As of April 2017, the Leisure Leagues network had more than 3,000 leagues in the UK alone, which made it the la ...

events in Pakistan. It earned the Leisure Leagues Women Football's Pink Cup 2020, held in October to promote breast cancer awareness, defeating Garrison Football Academy (2-0). The club won the Leisure Leagues Women's Cup 2021, defeating IBA United (2-0).

Social activities

Through sport, Diya W.F.C.’s purpose is to give girls a chance for

empowerment Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...

, and ''"transport, education and health fees are entirely covered"'' by the club It also teaches the players soft skills. Since 2008, every 25 February, Diya W.F.C. and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

hold a friendly match with girls from poor areas of Karachi to promote

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

, equal rights and to stop

violence against women Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed against women or girls, usually by men or boys. Such violence is often consi ...

. For the

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 as a focal point in the women's rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against wom ...

of 2015, the PFF held for the first time an

workshop in collaboration with Diya W.F.C. and

In June 2018, Diya W.F.C., in collaboration with Right To Play and Women Win, at the invitation of Thar Foundation, organized a football discovery session (including a four month preparation, training of coaches and matches) and provided

equipment Equipment most commonly refers to a set of tools or other objects commonly used to achieve a particular objective. Different job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and ...

for U-13 girls in the remote district of Tharparkar, which has the lowest

Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...

of Pakistan. A similar operation was conducted in September 2020 in different areas of Karachi, along with Right To Play, Women Win and the US mission in Pakistan. In October 2020, Imam Baloch, director of the

National Bank of Pakistan National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) () is a Pakistani government-owned multinational commercial bank which is a subsidiary of State Bank of Pakistan. It is headquartered in Karachi, Pakistan. As of September 2020, it has 1,511 branches across Pakist ...

, lauded Diya W.F.C.'s actions for spreading football to poor and "backward areas", such as

localities of

Malir Malir Town ( sd, ملير ٽائون, ur, ) lies in the northern part of the city that was named after the Malir River. History Administrative status 2000 The federal government under introduced local government reforms in the year 2 ...

Lyari Lyari (Urdu: ; sd, لیاري) is a historic locality in Karachi, Pakistan. It is the most densely-populated part of Karachi, and is one of its earliest settled areas.Sarwat Viqar (2014) Constructing Lyari: place, governance and identity in a Kar ...

and Ibrahim Hyderi and such Sindh province districts of

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

Thatta Thatta ( sd, ٺٽو; ) is a city in the Pakistani province of Sindh. Thatta was the medieval capital of Sindh, and served as the seat of power for three successive dynasties. Thatta's historic significance has yielded several monuments in and ...

Mirpur Khas Mirpur Khas ( Sindhi and ; ''meaning "Town of the most-high Mirs"'') is the capital city of the Mirpur Khas District and Mirpur Khas Division in the Sindh province, Pakistan. Mirpur Khas is the 16th largest city in Sindh province and the 80th ...

and Tharparkar, as well as discovering new talents over there. In

, the club organized a four-day camp for 10 to 16 years old girls and awareness workshops about food and nutrient and

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

."Diya Women Football Club organizes 4 day training camp at Mukli, Thatta". ''

Daily Messenger The ''Daily Messenger'' is an American daily newspaper published weekday afternoons and on Sundays (as the ''Sunday Messenger'') in Canandaigua, New York. It is owned by Gannett. In addition to the city of Canandaigua, the ''Daily Messenger'' ...

''. 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2021-10-19.

References

External links

Global Sport Archives - Diya W.F.C.

Global Sport Archives - Diya W.F.C. U16.

Eleven Sports - Diya W.F.C.'s matches - 2021 National Women Football Championship (video replay).

''Pakistan's first female football club breaks down cultural barriers'', UNICEF, 2011-03-02.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diya W.F.C. Women's football clubs in Pakistan Women's futsal clubs in Pakistan Association football clubs established in 2002 Futsal clubs established in 2002 2002 establishments in Pakistan Football in Karachi Diya W.F.C.