Adil Nabi, Zidane Iqbal, Sam Khan, Simranjit Singh Thandi and Dr Zaf Iqbal have all enjoyed a good week in the Beautiful Game; our resident expert Dev Trehan brings you all the details in the latest edition of South Asians in Football Weekly
Monday 25 December 2023 17:15, UK
The latest edition of South Asians in Football Weekly is out after another good week for the community in the Beautiful Game...
Former England U17 international Simranjit Singh Thandi is set to link up with Adil Nabi and sign for Cypriot side Doxa Katokopias, Sky Sports News can exclusively reveal.
Singh Thandi is a product of the Leicester City academy where he played alongside Harvey Barnes, Hamza Choudhury and Luke Thomas, before going on to turn professional at Stoke City.
The Leicester-born wing-back is well known in Cyprus, having spent three years playing at AEK Larnaca, before joining Karmiotissa on loan last season.
Earlier this year, Sky Sports News revealed that fellow British South Asian Nabi was joining Doxa, having previously played in England, Scotland, India and Greece.
Former England youth international Nabi got his first goal for the club last week, smashing into the top left corner from the penalty spot against Singh Thandi's former club AEK Larnaca.
Zidane Iqbal offered Manchester United fans a reminder of what they are missing out on after dazzling for FC Utrecht at the home of Dutch giants Feyenoord.
After an injury-delayed start to his career in the Netherlands, Iqbal made his first FC Utrecht start last week and enjoyed his first taste of playing in the raucous surrounds of Rotterdam's De Kuip Stadium.
Iqbal produced a star-turn performance for the visitors with a 100 per cent completion rate for tackles, attempted long balls and dribbles, taking 67 touches in just over an hour on the pitch, with 94 per cent overall pass accuracy.
Feyenoord edged the contest 2-1, with one Dutch newspaper naming Iqbal as FC Utrecht's player of the match.
Manchester-born Iqbal, whose mother is Iraqi and father is British-Pakistani, is expected to earn a place in the Iraq squad for next month's AFC Asian Cup.
Meanwhile, Dr Zaf Iqbal will leave Crystal Palace at the end of the season and replace Gary O'Driscoll as Arsenal's head of medical services, according to The Athletic's David Ornstein.
Dr Zaf, who has worked at Tottenham and Liverpool, played a key role in a breakthrough moment during the 2020/21 season, when Sky Sports News revealed that Leicester's Monday Night Football clash with Crystal Palace had been paused mid-game to allow players to open their fast during the holy period of Ramadan in a Premier League first.
Dr Zaf had liaised with Leicester City's Dr Bryan English, before the pair approached match referee Graham Scott to make a request to find an opportune moment to allow two players, Wesley Fofana and Cheikhou Kouyate, to open their fast.
Scott - and managers Roy Hodgson and then-Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers - all agreed, and when the ball went out of play on the half-hour mark, Fofana and Kouyate were afforded the opportunity to have a drink and take on some food.
This has now become a norm, with Sky Sports News exclusively revealing earlier this year that match officials across the leagues had been asked to find a natural pause in play to allow players to break their Ramadan fast during evening matches.
Luton Town Ladies head coach Myles Maddix hopes Sam Khan's Women's FA Cup heroics can inspire the next generation of South Asian girls coming through.
"Sam has always been a leader and a role model," Maddix told the WALT podcast.
"She's someone who has always led by example, with experience, and shown she can be a mentor for others.
"I think what she is doing now is setting a bar and setting a tempo for other young South Asian girls to look at it and think if she can do it, why can't I?
"They can start to look [more] at football as a route that they can go down and follow, because Sam is one of those that is paving the way."
Her Game Too Luton Town ambassador Hina Shafi added: "Sam epitomises what Luton is all about as a town and as a community.
"She embodies the spirit of Luton, the humility, the resilience, and the bouncebackability.
"It's fantastic that Luton Town Ladies has created a culture for talents like Sam Khan to thrive so that she can be her authentic self."
For more stories, features and videos, visit our groundbreaking South Asians in Football page on skysports.com and stay tuned to Sky Sports News and our Sky Sports digital platforms.
