From inter-school tournaments to the Kings League, and all the achievements in between, Miraash's fiery passion for football and his journey in the industry has been nothing short of an inspiring testament to hard work, dedication and the pursuit of dreams.
“Hey! Can [you] get this across to as many people as possible?” My Instagram notification buzzed. It was a Maldivian friend in Barcelona, reaching out because a Maldivian footballer - Miraash Imthiyaz - needed votes on Twitch to advance to the next stage of something called the Kings League selections. If you don’t know what that is, you’re going to want to keep reading.
“Well, if it’s a Maldivian trying to make it internationally, we have to make this happen,” I thought, quickly sharing the post on my Instagram story.
The following night, I found myself up at 03:00 AM, trying to figure out how to sign up to Twitch and navigating the voting process. Between the commentary being in Spanish and my Spanish skills limited to Dora the Explorer, I gave up on voting. But that didn’t stop me from staying up to see if he made the cut.
By then, Miraash had already made his way through some 3,000 contestants, and made it to the top 40. That night would determine if he secured a spot at the top 32 - and sure enough, despite falling short on votes, his performance spoke for itself; he cleared the round. But a crucial step still lay ahead: Draft Day, when teams would select their final players.
At that point, I had already scheduled an interview with him - set for the morning of Draft Day - because I still needed to know: Who is Miraash Imthiyaaz? To answer that question, we spin the globe over to the Indian Ocean and zoom in onto a tiny island enveloped by the crystal blue waters of the Maldives - Malé City.
Born and raised in the busy capital of Maldives where space is too little and people too many, Miraash - affectionately known as Ash by his family - comes from a family in aviation. His father is a pilot and his mother works for an international airline. He's also the elder brother to a teenage sibling who’s still in school. Following in his father’s footsteps, Miraash too, became a pilot and now works as a flight instructor in Barcelona.
I just told you who Miraash is, but you still don’t know WHO Miraash is. To truly understand, we need to turn the calendar back a little over two decades.
Sometimes, it’s the smallest steps that shape a child’s entire future. Parents are always on the lookout for even the tiniest hints of hidden talent. With every squiggle, they wonder whether they’re raising an artist, and when they tinker with toys and remotes, the next google search is “how much does an engineering degree cost?” So when two year old Miraash kicked a ball across the floor of his childhood home, of course his mother took notice. She watched, curious and hopeful - could this be a sign of something more?
They say a parent’s instinct is never wrong, and Miraash’s mother Aishath Niyaan wasn’t one to dismiss her gut feelings. Her next call was to football coach Heena Ahmed Saleem, known locally in the Maldivian community as ‘Bodu Heena’. He had just started the Early Touch Football Academy (ETFA), and she wanted to know if Miraash could enroll along with the older boys, since there weren’t any classes in his age group, Heena agreed.
“Even when he was little, he didn’t like other toys. Just wanted to play ball. So it was just in him throughout. I didn’t even really need to wake him up for anything. He would wake up on his own and call us to take him there. Since the beginning he’s had the passion in him,” Miraash’s mum shared her memories of the time, adding that even his childhood birthday parties were always football themed.
Fast forward two decades and little Ash - now Miri to his friends and Miraash to his colleagues - is playing in Gerard Piqué's Kings League, a seven a side football league in Barcelona established in 2022, representing Iker Casillas' team—the very football legends he idolized growing up. But it wasn’t just skills that got Miraash to where he is today.
Over the next decade, Miraash dedicated himself to training, attending various football camps, and even traveling to Singapore during school holidays for extra coaching at the Manchester United Academy there. He played in inter-school tournaments, consistently making his mark on the pitch, even at such a young age - so much so, that he got featured in Haveeru News, the leading print media at the time.
“By the end of the inter-school football tournament, the one player who caught the attention of many in the audience was Iskandar School’s sixth grade student Mohamed Miraash Imthiyaz (Ash). His dribbling, dodging, passes and shots were that perfect. If a child his age has that level of skill,, everyone will expect [big things] from him,” Mohamed Hamdhoon, the then Haveeru journalist, wrote about Miraash.
In the article, Miraash attributed his success in the tournament to what he learned from Heena and the Manchester Academy. “It really benefited me,” the then Arsenal and Maziya fan told Haveeru.
“Ash is a player that has the potential to become a star in the Maldives,” even his school team’s coach only had good things to say.
“After [I] finish school, [I’ll] play football. [I] really want to play. God willing, [I] will always play football,” were Miraash’s words at only 12 years old - just around the time his parents took him to a camp in Barcelona for training. His experience there was so impactful, and his passion so intense, that even at such a young age, Miraash was ready to uproot his life and move to Spain to continue his training - but there was one condition.
“So, I came to a camp - Barca camp - when I was 12, and ever since then, I was begging my parents to take me here,” Miraash explained over the phone all the way from Spain, where he now lives.
“[A]nd there was an academy [UE Cornellà's Academy] that allowed that to happen, and I asked my parents and they were like, okay, if you get so and so in your grades - I was in grade seven by then - they would send me. So I worked and I got those [grades] and I was like, okay, now you can send me, and they agreed,” Miraash recalled how the decision to move was made.
“Moving to Spain at the age of 12 must have been challenging. You didn’t know the language, so how was it like adjusting to Spain?” I had to ask.
“Yeah, I came here, and obviously, like you said, I didn’t speak the language, so it was a bit difficult adjusting in the beginning and being alone for the first time as well […] I was in a residence with other footballers, so I made friends with my roommates. They were all Russian, so I learned to speak a bit of Russian with them, but it wasn’t too bad because we were all pretty much the same age doing the same thing, so my social life wasn’t bad at all - and they spoke English too,” he reminisced.
Since his entire move to Spain was also contingent on his good grades, I asked him how the schooling arrangement was like during his training.
“I went to a school in Sitges. That’s a school 30 minutes away from here and it was an international school. So, the academy basically put us in an international school which was the first time [for me], because I was in Iskandhar [school] my whole life, and it was a big change,” Miraash said before breaking into a chuckle.
“I was like, oh, this is a lot of freedom, but it was nice! At first it didn’t feel like school because we were having breaks all the time [...] and school lasted about eight hours or a bit, maybe 10 hours? Was it 11? I don’t remember now but it felt like a long time, and it [still] felt fun and, I mean, I finished my O’Levels and A’Levels there as well,” fondly reflected on his school days.
Despite the fun and excitement, surely being away from family and loved ones could not have been easy, right?
“Well, the first year I wasn’t homesick at all,” he said laughing. “I was on top of the world. And then I came back for my break and had such a good time with my family. I don’t know, how many cousins do I have? Maybe like 40 or something! [...] I had such a good time and I didn’t want to go back. I was just really sad to go back.”
“That’s when I first felt homesick, but my mum, she works for an airline, so you know, they were able to travel a lot. So my parents came to visit as much as they could. My brother as well, so that helped.”
While Miraash’s love for football has always been fierce, it certainly is not blind. He still faced having to make practical life decisions; ones that include the reality that he would have to retire from football at some point, and need a career pathway to fall back on. With the guidance of his parents, he chose aviation and went on to become a pilot himself.
He describes his first night flight during his pilot training as the most memorable moment in the air. “I think that was when I really realised this is actually a beautiful industry, a beautiful profession. [That] I would really enjoy it.”
As beautiful as it may be, juggling football and aviation - two incredibly demanding lines of work - must be like balancing on a tightrope. “How do you manage?” I asked.
“So I usually finish work, well right now at 09:30 but now with winter it’s going to be at 08:30, and the training is usually in the evenings [...] It’s what I’ve always done. Even when I was studying, I was going to school in the morning and then had training in the evening, so it’s pretty much the same. And also there’s a lot of people who play the lower leagues who have other jobs because the income from football is not enough,” Miraash shared.
But for Miraash, the working hours aren’t too tough.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously it’s a lot of hours but my mum has always taught me that it’s not about I can do anything, it’s that I can do everything. So, I’ve always had that in my mind and I never thought about quitting, because if I start something, I always have to finish it. [A]nd the same thing has been going on with football. I’ve started trying to become a footballer, so I can’t stop until I do. Same with aviation. I started the course and I was like okay, I have to finish it now that I started it.”
This made me wonder if there are any parallels between both professions. When I asked, Miraash’s answer was straight forward - decisions.
“Pilots make decisions and in football, it’s all about decisions in the end. The better decisions you make, the higher up you are. [...] But it’s more about the quality of the decisions you make. When you have two decisions - pass to this player or pass to that player or keep going forward. So I would say, decision making is something very important and parallel in both professions.”
Miraash’s pursuit of football has come a long way. From a wide-eyed toddler kicking a ball to competing in the big leagues today, his journey has been marked by steady growth through various stages. After he moved to Spain in 2013, he got called for Crystal Palace London, a Premier League team there.
“It didn’t work out because of paper[work] reasons, because I was underaged and it was really difficult getting a work contract without a European passport. So, they weren’t able to sign me, and that was something that really discouraged me, I would say.”
But, Miraash was still determined. He didn’t let that stop him, and moved back to Spain where he made it to División de Honor, the highest league in Spain’s under 18 age group in 2018. Miraash later got selected to play for Rubi, and was on the squad that qualified for the Copa del Rei in 2023.
But it was his 2022 national team debut, where he proudly represented the Maldives against friendly matches in Southeast Asia, that was another defining moment in his career.
“I played for a month and then I came back. They didn’t call me after that [...] I was still playing the league while this was going on so you know I had to come back and do that,” he explained why he did not play for the country long term
Although short, he values the time on the team and describes it as one of the key moments of his career.
It is at this point that we must return to the present moment, where Miraash’s story has come full circle - where he’s now the first ever Maldivian to play in the Kings League. On the evening of Draft Day, Kings League opened up another livestream - this time on Tiktok as well, so it was much easier to follow.
As teams selected their members, I could feel the tension in the arena’s air through the screen, as if it seeped right into my room. This time with some Duolingo Spanish lessons under my belt, I tried to make sense of what the commentators were saying. My goal was to try and catch the name Miraash Imthiyaz, and as fate would have it, I heard the name, followed by “pilot”, and the camera zoomed in on him walking up on the stage as the first pick for 1kfutbolclub.
But what made him switch out from traditional football over to a newly established league?
“To be honest, I’ve been watching the Kings League because it’s quite famous here in Barcelona especially, so everyone watches it,” he paused, throwing in another chuckle before proceeding to tell me how he ended up applying for the Kings league.
“I was actually looking for airline jobs, and then it just popped on my page, on the app that I was looking for jobs, and it [said] they were looking for players for the Kings League. So, I was like okay, let me just send my CV, and I sent it.” Although he didn’t expect to get selected among the thousands of applicants, Miraash said, “it was something new and something I wanted to try because it was very entertaining. And I feel, new is always… new is good sometimes.”
Miraash also saw potential in how quickly the league was catching on in other parts of the world.
“I saw how much Pique was basically investing into it; how much it’s scoring. So, I really wanted to be a part of it. Especially now that there was a World Cup last summer or a bit before summer. And now more countries are joining in like Saudi Arabia, United States, Brazil, and Belgium [...] I think there’s some future for this league. So that’s why I wanted to get involved.”
But this doesn’t mean Miraash is closed off to other opportunities. “No, I would never say no to anything. I don’t like to close any doors. So, I would go back to traditional football if there was a better opportunity, of course. But right now, I’m focused on this and I hope I get in tonight,” Miraash said before he knew he made it into the team.
Since he had completed the try-outs by then, I asked him how the style of playing in the Kings League differs from traditional football.
“So the field is a lot smaller and the goals are a bit smaller as well. So, [it’s] more difficult to score the goals because the keepers are still the same size,” he said through chuckles.
“To be honest, being there it’s challenging, I would say, because there’s so many cameras, like you’re living in a show. So, I think it was really exciting, but at the same time I was thinking, every decision or every small thing I do, I’m being watched,” he shared his experience about the trials, which had over 400,000 viewers watching the event live.
“So, it’s a lot of people watching and a lot of people commenting on everything, so when I’m up there I don’t think about the comments obviously, but I feel, okay, I have to do well because there’s people watching,” he shared the initial pressure of having to perform well.
As Miraash continues to break barriers and make history as a Maldivian footballer while balancing both football and aviation, his journey exemplifies perseverance, passion, and dedication. Although aviation demands more in terms of his daily schedule, football remains his heart’s calling.
“If I were to choose one right now, I would choose the Kings League because the pay and everything is pretty much the same and it’s my passion - what I’ve always wanted to do. But I would say aviation is my future, especially [since] I’m not going to keep playing football after I’m 40 or 38. And aviation is an industry where your experience is valued,” he laid out his plans.
But despite his vast experience and unique perspective into the international football scene, Miraash remains humble about offering advice, acknowledging the limited opportunities that remain available in Maldives.
“To be honest, I feel really bad giving advice because I never feel like I’m in a position to give advice [...] I know the opportunities are very limited, so in the end it’s very hard. I know there’s people, especially in Maldives, with a lot more talent than me [...] and I just have to be grateful. I’m just grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.”
So, his message to aspiring athletes is simple: “Just work really hard. Especially if you believe in something, just keep going.” Reflecting on his own journey, Miraash says, “don’t stop. Everything doesn’t always go according to plan but just keep going. Nothing goes according to plan but everything works out in the end.”
For now, Miraash looks forward to balancing his two great passions - football and aviation - hoping to give his best, keeping his mother’s words close to his heart: “It’s not that you can do anything, it’s that you can do everything.”
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