In June 2017 two international all-women soccer teams will look to play a 90-minute match on a temporary pitch just below the summit of Kilimanjaro. If they succeed, they will break the world record for the highest altitude football match.
The players include former Canada international Sasha Andrews, Germany World Cup star Petra Landers, Afghanistan international Hajar Abufazl, former Fifa World Cup referee Jacqui Hurford and players from Argentina, France, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, Great Britain, United States and the UAE.
This venture is supported by the Equal Playing Field (EFP) initiative, which launched on International Women’s Day on the 8th of March 2017 and looks to increase opportunity, equality and respect for women seeking to play or work in sport, and raise the profile of inspirational female sporting role models in the media.
“Playing a football match at this altitude has never been done before,” Laura Youngson, an EPF co-founder, said, “we want to break a record to inspire other women and girls to keep challenging the inequalities in sport.”
Kilimanjaro stands at 5,895 metres tall, more than two kilometres higher than the world’s highest fixed football stadium.
The week after the match on Kilimanjaro, EPF will work with local teams and organisations in 10 countries to host football clinics to support and advance women’s football development globally.
Kilimanjaro also provided the stage for the highest ever cricket match back in 2014, and the world record for the highest game of rugby was also achieved on Tanzania’s famous mountain in 2015.
What record could you break on Kilimanjaro?