Age: 29
Occupation: Professional footballer
For Farkhunda Muhtaj, football has always been bigger than the game on the pitch. She credits her parents, Afghan refugees who immigrated to Ontario when she was two years old, for much of her leadership skills and the courage it takes to stand up for others. “As a professional athlete, you have a platform and young girls are looking up to you,” she says. “It’s really about what legacy you are going to leave behind.”
Muhtaj is co-founder of the Scarborough Simbas, a Toronto-based non-profit that creates opportunities for young people through sport. She’s also the former captain of the Afghanistan women’s national football team. When the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and female Afghan athletes faced threats after being banned from sports, Muhtaj went to Portugal to help evacuate and resettle dozens of young Afghan girls and their families.
Her pro career has taken her to Turkey, the Netherlands and now Calgary (she moved to the city in January 2025 as the first player signed to Calgary Wild FC), and, while her soccer skills are impressive, it’s her social activism she hopes to leave as a lasting legacy: “That I was a footballer that cared about humanity… that’s what I would love for people to remember me as.”
That innate sense of justice has guided her work for groups like Right To Play Canada and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Canada. With the Wild, Muhtaj is a community ambassador, hosting a podcast to share her teammates’ stories and distributing free tickets for marginalized communities to attend games. She also created Farkhunda’s Footballers, inviting 30 underserved individuals (including single mothers and refugees) to Wild games in collaboration with Penny Appeal Canada, a relief and development charity.
Top 40 Under 40 2026
Devin Fisher and Gabrielle Leakey