Zesh Rehman

Zesh Rehman is a British former defender of Pakistani origin, born in Birmingham on 14 October 1983. He was the first British Asian to play in the top division of English football and the first to play in all four divisions, and his career took him from Fulham to clubs in Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia before he moved into coaching. He represented Pakistan at senior level after playing for England's youth teams. ^{1 2 3 4}

Rehman came through the Fulham academy and made his professional debut in September 2003, scoring his only goal for the club in a League Cup tie against Lincoln City in September 2005. After loans at Brighton & Hove Albion and Norwich City he joined Queens Park Rangers in 2006, and during three years there he was loaned to Brighton again, to Blackpool and to Bradford City. His Bradford debut in January 2009 made him the first British Asian to have played in all four divisions of professional football in England, and he joined Bradford permanently that summer and captained the side. ^{1 2 3 4}

In December 2010 he moved to Muangthong United in Thailand, and then played for Kitchee in Hong Kong and Pahang in Malaysia, where he won the Malaysia Cup. A short spell at Gillingham in 2017 was followed by five years at Southern in Hong Kong, where he became player-manager in 2020 and led the league's youngest coaching team on its lowest budget. After finishing his playing career he joined Portsmouth as under-18 coach in June 2022 and served as interim first-team assistant manager from January 2023. The English article also records his community work: he was one of the Football Association's ambassadors for the 2018 World Cup bid and entered the Show Racism the Red Card Hall of Fame. ^{1 2 3 4}

The English article presents Rehman, in its community-work passages, as a Muslim footballer: it records that in April 2008 he appeared on Noor TV and Islamic TV discussing being a Muslim footballer and how a career in football can be pursued while sticking to Islamic roots, and that in July 2008 he took part in the Islam Expo event in London, whose purpose was to build bridges between Britain's Muslim communities and the rest of society. That is one article naming Islam in general and naming no school; the Arabic and Urdu articles say nothing about his religion, and Wikidata carries no religion value for him. One source naming no school does not meet the museum's bar, so his faith is recorded as unknown. ^{1 2 3 4}