ISLAMABAD: Pakistan women’s football team captain Maria Khan has been signed up by Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Flames Football Club to support the Kingdom’s national women’s squad in the Saudi Women’s Premier League this season, the club announced this week.
The US-born Pakistani athlete, 31, was named the captain of the South Asian country’s national women’s team last year, leading her side at the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Women Football Championship in Nepal.
“Maria Khan has joined the ranks of the Eastern Flame FC,” the club, also known as Shala Al-Sharqiya, announced on messaging platform X.
“The club’s management contracted with the first foreign female professional to support the ranks of the [Saudi] women’s football team in the Women’s Premier League for this season.”
According to the official website of Eastern Flames FC, it is the first Saudi women’s football team, which was established in 2006 and has remained the champion of the Kingdom’s Eastern Province in 2020 and 2021.
Earlier this year, the Pakistan women’s team also traveled to Saudi Arabia under Khan’s captaincy to participate in a four-nation tournament that also featured Comoros and Mauritius.
While the green shirts were declared the runners-up of the tournament, Khan’s stunning free-kick equalizer that gave her country a 1-1 draw against Saudi Arabia was widely lauded on social media.
