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A football fan who was caught on TV celebrating England's equalising goal against Denmark at the Euros was fired for lying to her employers about being sick on that day.
Yet, despite losing her job, Nina Farooqi told The Telegraph that she would "do it all over again".
The 37-year-old had been sitting behind the goal at Wembley Stadium on Jul. 7 when Simon Kjær inadvertently scored an own goal to bring the game level.
Farooqi's manic celebrations alongside her friend — both screaming and jumping — were then beamed around the world as television cameras zoomed in on her.
Called in sick
She told The Telegraph that it wasn't long before she realised that her sneaky trip to the football match might not have gone to plan.
"We were all over the news, my face was on every television screen across the world — I had friends from Australia and America telling me they’d seen me."
"The rational part of me thought, 'oh no, is this going to come back to haunt me?'"
The digital content producer had actually told her employers that she was sick in order to attend the match. Farooqi felt that she was unlikely to be granted a day off as her workplace was short-staffed.
Her friend had won tickets to the semi-final at a work ballot and invited her at the last minute. As a die-hard England fan there was no way Farooqi was going to turn down the opportunity.
"This hasn’t come around since 1996, I vividly remember crying on my mum's sofa when Gareth Southgate missed his penalty, and the football fan in me just couldn’t do it."
"Football is my life," she said.
Sacked by her employers the next day
Yet, as The Telegraph reported, Farooqi's jaunt to Wembley landed her in hot water with employers at Composite Prime.
She was told the next morning not to bother showing up to work.
According to Yahoo News, Composite Prime have said that they would have encouraged Farooqi's attendance at the "important football match".
However, as Farooqi had lied and taken sick leave, she was "in breach of her employment contract".
"We had no choice but to take the appropriate action."
The company added that would be giving their staff a day off on Monday (Jul. 12) if England wins.
"Mixed emotions"
For Farooqi, the whole experience has left her with "mixed emotions", having experienced both her best moment as a football fan and also her worst as a worker.
"They said they’d seen I’d been at the game, and I was honest about why I did it," she told The Telegraph, in reference to her former employers.
"I didn’t get any sympathy at all and they said that's it. That’s their call and the consequence of what I did. There is a bit of regret, no one wants to get fired, but then also I would have hated the regret of missing out."
"I’d do it all over again."
Top image screenshot from ITV Sport