Kazi Salahuddin, the long-serving president of the South Asian Football Federation, has for long envisaged a club championship for the region. His long-cherished dream of his is on the cusp of reality but perhaps even he wouldn’t have thought that women footballers from the region would beat their male counterparts to it.

However, with the strides the women’s game has made in South Asia, it is instead the SAFF Women’s Club Championship, which kicks off in Nepal from Friday, that will herald the start of a tournament for clubs in the region.

“I believe this was the right time to start,” SAFF secretary general Purushottam Kattel told Dawn on Thursday, noting that it is the first women’s club tournament across Asia’s five regions.

“We’ve been charting the progress of the women’s national teams in South Asia and they’ve been very competitive.

“Bangladesh secured a historic first qualification to the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup and India have qualified as well, and apart from those the other national teams in the region also showed good performances and we believe that the club championship will help elevate the women’s game in the region.”

The five-team tournament features domestic champions from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan with Kattel informing that SAFF had found a good appetite for the tournament, unlike the sponsorship and scheduling issues that have dogged the launch of the men’s club championship.

“There was huge interest in the tournament, especially in the host country,” enthused Kattel, with that also helping SAFF, which has to finance the travel and accommodation for the competing clubs, announcing an impressive prize purse.

“The winners will receive US$10,000 and the runners-up $5000.”

Kattel was hopeful that the championship will become an annual fixture on the calendar and that its success will help the launch of women’s leagues in the two South Asian countries that are missing in action from the inaugural edition.

“Both Sri Lanka and Maldives are working on it and hopefully in the next edition we will have representatives from all seven SAFF members,” he added.

Regional glory

For the five competing teams, the club championship offers a chance for regional glory, and apart from India’s East Bengal, an opportunity to compete outside their home country.

East Bengal enter the tournament as favourites, having featured in the group stage of the AFC Women’s Champions League — the continent’s elite club competition — last month. They made history by becoming the first Indian side to win an AFC Champions League game when they beat Iran’s Bam Khatoon FC.

Pakistan’s Karachi City FC open the tournament with a clash against Transport United of Bhutan with Nepal’s APF clashing against Nasrin Sports Academy of Bangladesh in the other fixture on the opening day. All five teams will face each other in the round-robin stage with the top two advancing to the final on Dec 20.

Karachi City won the National Women’s Championship last year and have strengthened their team by adding several international players including Jordan’s Maysa Jbarah and the United Arab Emirates duo of Nouf Alzani and Fatima Alhosani. Pakistan captain Maria Khan has also joined the side for the tournament.

“The idea was to strengthen the squad and have players who could add value to the team,” Karachi City head coach Adeel Rizki said at the pre-tournament press conference at the ANFA Complex in Kathmandu on Thursday.

It remains to be seen whether Karachi City’s stockpiling of talent, that saw them obliterate opposition on their way to the domestic title, works at the regional stage.