The National Women’s Team will be departing to U.A.E this afternoon for a training camp ahead of the SAFF Women’s Championship to be held in Nepal.

The team will camp the Emirates from 1^st March to 9^th March to gain experience and training before departing for the Saff Championship on 10^th March to return on 19^th. The side was drawn in the same group as fierce neighbours India and Sri Lanka. The Championship held in Britnagar, Nepal will feature the national team against India on 13^th March and against Sri Lanka on the 15^th.

The National Women’s coach Mohamed Aathif (Aathy) says he is confident that the team can yield good results this time and targets to atleast play the final. He also mentioned that their needs to be work done to improve the women’s football locally and that there is plenty of potential in developing great female players. A girl academy was started recently by FAM and is hoped to develop and produce great women players. According to Aathy the Academy is the foundation, of the women’s football pyramid, now they just have that and the top of the pyramid. The levels between the academy and the national side is not there yet. Currently, FAM is working on building an under-19 national side. There was work done to host a Women’s Premier League in 2017 but due to the lack of support from teams it was cancelled. The only team that took part was New Radiant. Other teams said the time period to practice was too less between the announcing and the start of the league.

2018 has been a great year for the women’s side as they gained experiences from the losses in Asian Games and Olympics qualifying and proved themselves strong in the International Women’s Quadrangular Tournament. One strong evidence to that is the national side lost to the women of Indonesia in the Asian Games held in August by 6-0. Later in November, women of the two countries clashed again in the Olympics qualifying and despite a strong fight by Maldives, The Indonesian won by 3-1. But when both sides met again in the International Quadrangular Tournament, Maldives took the game to penalties and defeated Indonesia.

Women’s football has just started to catch in the air with great potential and more developments to come, our hope is that our national women’s players showcase their difference in the international level. Our prayers are with the National Women’s Team for the upcoming SAFF Women’s Championship 2019.