Being a female athlete in India comes with a lot of challenges; the environment, state of infrastructure, equipment, lack of female coaches, no foreseeable future in the sport and most importantly, our society’s patriarchal mindset. For years now, many top athletes have given up promising careers to support their families at home or join a corporate that would help them become independent, while some others who would still want to somehow pursue the sport would join government jobs that had sports teams in alien towns away from their families, not to mention the discrimination they would face for being a woman.
Having faced all of these challenges and much more, Tanaz Mohammed took this as an opportunity rather than a challenge. Having been an avid sportsperson since her childhood, she was not willing to let go of the sports in her blood. She pursued her first love hockey until 2016 when she played the Senior Nationals at Bangalore representing Maharashtra and prior to that, was even part of the initial pool for the junior Indian hockey team in 2013. In fact, she was even offered a job with the Railways on the basis of her merits but decided against it since she had to set base in some faraway part of the country.
“When I started coaching football, I couldn’t find a girl who was in the game professionally. Most of the time there is parental pressure and girls are forced to focus on their academics for the lack of options professionally,” exclaims Tanaz, who is now a Grassroots Development Officer with ISL giants, Mumbai City FC as well as a Premier Skills Coach Educator. At the age of seven, she surprised her parents when she told them she wanted to take part in a road running race. The then very shy and reserved girl has come a long way since, now training football coaches and even giving lectures and guiding management students about careers in sports. So much so she was even felicitated for her work by People Who Usually Don’t Lecture (PWUDL) – an event where she was invited to speak on her journey in August last year.
But the journey for her has been nothing short of enthralling. At the age of nine, Tanaz started playing hockey – a game no one in her family had ever played before (her father played cricket) – with her school team. Over the years, Tanaz created a name for herself representing and captaining her school, the Mumbai district, the Maharashtra state and even took part in international tournaments the world over.
After completing her graduation, Tanaz continued to dabble with sports taking coaching assignments as and when they came and also played local tournaments. She even worked in a corporate setting for three months but sooner than later decided that it wasn’t her cup of tea. Things changed for the better when she appeared for and cleared the entrance exam for her PG in Sports Management, which she completed as the Gold Medallist and also the Student of the Year in her batch post which her career in football began. Until then, her contribution to football was limited to representing the school and college in district level tournaments.
“I joined Mumbai City FC as an assistant coach for two months but they were really impressed and soon I was the Grassroots Coordinator. I’m guessing I did well because last year I was promoted as the Grassroots Development Officer for this massive club!”
Tanaz’s first assignment was where she decided to get her hands dirty. “When I went to conduct a summer camp in Madanpura back in 2017, I had received an astounding 1200 registrations but on closer inspection, I realised that there was not a single girl! I spoke to a parent and found out that they don’t have the equipment and felt uncomfortable without a female coach. I told that parent to inform the rest that I would be there myself to train their daughters. I was pleasantly surprised the next day when around 500 girls turned up to play football, some in football gear and others in their hijabs, my point being that the boundaries are existing only in your head. As a woman, you must push those boundaries and set your inhibitions free.” So much so many of the girls’ mothers were overwhelmed and approached Tanaz to conduct a training for them as well. “I was so happy to be able to create a spark and encourage women to do their best and conquer their inhibitions. In fact, to date, I get goosebumps when I think of the time one of the girl’s father approached me and thanked me and said he never imagined something like this could happen!” “But the larger impact was that most of the girls started representing their school football teams,” beams a satisfied Tanaz.
It’s her hard work and sheer dedication that has taken Tanaz to where she is. She kept upgrading her skillset and attended Premier Skills – a joint initiative by the Premier League and British Council that empowers Grassroots Coaches to help young people to improve their lives through football – first as a student in 2017. Today Tanaz is the only female Premier Skills Head Coach Educator in the country all thanks to her desire to improve the football landscape for women in the country. In fact, she got a positive surprise on Women’s Day last month when Premier League India featured her on their website which was and still is on media the world over.
Tanaz has since mentored hundreds of football coaches over the country and is hungry to do more. I want to create an atmosphere where girls come out and play the sport and thus feel empowered. I also want to educate parents because parents are their children’s first teachers and more often than not pressurise their children to do what they feel should be done rather than allow their children to explore their options. It’s really fulfilling to see when a child gets happy and wants to come back the next day again to training. That’s the main purpose – for children to start loving the game at that age and not to win. Most coaches go wrong there and at the end of the day the child goes home disappointed.”
But when she’s not on the field, Tanaz likes to try her hand at something new and the current lockdown has given her ample time to cook, do some nail art and spend some more time with her family at home. Her mother jokes, “I thought my daughter would be a doctor or a Chartered Accountant, she excelled at her studies but here she is breaking bones on the field instead of mending them in a clinic!”
Tanaz also shares a special bit of advice, “For all the women out there, take every challenge as an opportunity and break the glass ceiling because, for you, the sky is the limit!”
