UK’s First Hijabi Football Coach to Get UEFA A License
Six years ago, Annie Zaidi made history as the first Muslim woman to get level two coaching badge, or UEFA B license, from the Football Association.
Today, she is on track to become the first South Asian, Muslim in Europe to complete her UEFA A license in football coaching.
“It takes a long time, especially when you’re not from a football background or family, and I had to take the long way around it, but I wanted to do it because I’m a good coach, I do it with pride and integrity,” Zaidi told Leicester Mercury.
“There have been moments of doubts, questions and thinking that if I wasn’t South Asian, maybe I would have got it easier, but going up and down the motorway, coaching different teams till 10pm at night, sometimes in freezing cold temperatures – has all been to get to this moment, and I can’t quit now.”
Joining the world of football, Zaidi made it her mission to help young, BAME women and girls to join the world’s most popular sport.
The assistant head of year at Judgemeadow secondary school in Evington began her journey at a time where girls’ football provisions were not as readily available.
“I really wanted to be a professional player, but there was a lack of female players and girls teams, and opportunities were non-existent,” she said.
Helping Girls
She has since set up the AnnieZ Coaching foundation, a stepping stone for girls to step into a football career.
The 12 week program provides young women with long-term technical skills, providing each with a personal development plan.
“I love the girls but the purpose is not to keep them, but to help them to grow and develop and signpost them into different clubs in the areas that they live in. Not many South Asian girls take up football, not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t have the skills,” she said.
“Our ethos is to ‘empower, inspire and encourage girls’, particularly from black and South Asian backgrounds to fulfil their dreams and I’m living proof that dreams can come true.
“Representation matters to this generation and this generation wants someone that looks like them and that’s why the girls feel comfortable with me.”
In 2017, Zaidi received the British Empire Medal in the Queen New Year honors.
At the Sportswomen of the Year Awards in 2015, she won the Helen Rollason Award for inspiration, praised by high profile sporting figures for her commitment to the sport.
She won as Asian Woman of Achievement Award as well as Neville Hamilton award for services to sport and the community at the Leicester Mercury Sports Awards.
SOURCE: https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/europe/uks-first-hijabi-football-coach-to-get-uefa-a-license/