Second British Pakistani female becomes football agent

LONDON: A British Pakistani lawyer has become Britain’s and world’s second Asian football agent for the English Football Association (FA).
Bilkis Mahmood, Leeds based lawyer, is now hoping that her appointment will encourage more women from the ethnic backgrounds to follow in her footsteps. “It’s a challenge for me; I want to prove to the Minority Ethnic groups, particularly females that if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything”, said Bilkis Mahmood.
She said that she was given encouragement by Britain’s first British Pakistani football agent for the English FA, Shehneela Ahmed who made global news headlines just a year ago by becoming the football agent.
“The sports world is no longer just a man’s sport and more females are now involved in the sport industry. Especially with the football, I grew up watching the game. I have good male friends around me who are already involved in the football industry and they also encouraged me”, said Bilkis Mahmood
The FA is campaigning to bring more Asians into football, but only eight of the 4,000 players in the Football League are of Asian descent.The FA has recognised and is making strides to tackle the lack of British Asian talent, taking a series of forums around the country to speak to members of the Asian community trying to discover why there are not more Asians involved in the professional game.
Bilkis said: “It comes down to educating and mentoring the key decision makers, the coaches, the scouts and the people who do not have an extensive knowledge of the Asian community. Once these kinds of things start working together we should start to see a rise in participation.”
Bilkis Mahmood is one of seven children. Her family came to Britain in the early 1960’s from Pakistan. “Rising to the challenge in the face of adversity has become my modus operandi from primary school as I arrived late to the British educational system from an Urdu speaking background. Neither of my parents had formal education but fortunately, my father’s aspiration was for all his children to attend university and have a professional background to become either doctors or lawyers as was and still an aspiration as is the view held by most Asian parents”, she said.
She said: “One of my first roles as the only Asian female youth and community worker was to forge links with the local community in promoting and encouraging young Asian women to become active in outdoor sport, namely, rock climbing, abseiling, pot-holing, canoeing and horse riding. This had its challenges as Asian girls in the mid eighties were not encouraged to take part in sporting activities.”