New Delhi: Jharkhand footballer and India Under-17 Women’s World Cup prospect Anita Kumari was repeatedly discouraged from pursuing a career in the sport and even had pieces of glass thrown at her during training sessions, the player’s family has revealed in an interview with Jharkhand-based news website TheFollowUp.
A video of the interview was shared on TheFollowUp website late Saturday, after it was reported that seven footballers from Jharkhand — goalkeeper Anjali Munda, defenders Celina Kumari, Sudha Anita Tirkey, Ashtam Oraon, Poornima Kumari, midfielder Neetu Linda and winger Anita Kumari — had been selected for a national camp in preparation for the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, scheduled to be held in India in October.
According to reports, more than 30 girls are currently being trained at the camp, which is being held in Jamshedpur.
The 2022 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup will feature teams from 16 nations and is scheduled to take place between 11 and 30 October at three venues in India — Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Stadium, Margao’s Nehru Stadium and Navi Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium.
While it remains to be seen whether Anita, a resident of Ormanjhi village in Ranchi district. will make it to the final 23-member squad for the main tournament, the camp selection represents the next milestone in a career that risked never getting off the ground, due to financial and societal obstacles.
‘Wondered why she is playing football’
The report quoted Anita’s mother Asha, who works as a labourer, as saying that the villagers had repeatedly discouraged the family from allowing her to follow her football dreams, and to focus on a more viable career and studies.
“[Anita has been playing] for 8 years… the entire village wondered why she is playing so much football, and kept saying that she should be studying instead. But it was better for her to go out and play football, than to stay indoors and just do household work,” Asha said in the interview.
Anita’s younger sister Vinita, also a football player, was quoted as recalling how the sisters’ passion for football often drew misogynistic comments from the villagers.
“[Villagers] used to ask us why we’re wearing ‘half-pant’ [shorts] like boys, why we keep going to play football, and at the place we would go to practice, they would throw pieces of glass and anything else they could find at us,” Vinita claimed.
The family also revealed that Anita Kumari mostly trained on a diet of “mad bhat” — rice fermented in water — and that the family does not own a television or mobile phones to watch her play if she makes it to the World Cup squad.
S. Pradhan, one of the coaches of the state football association, was quoted as saying that all seven of the Jharkhand girls chosen for the camp are from very humble backgrounds and daughters of daily wage labourers or small farmers.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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