Two weeks ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, the FIFA Council changed its regulations to allow an Afghanistan women’s refugee team to participate in international competitions. It would allow the team to qualify for the Olympics and World Cup. It would also clear the way for other teams in similar circumstances to earn the same recognition.
This is something that the players and their advocates have fought for since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan and subsequently banned women from playing sports.
One of the women who fought for the team’s acceptance is one of its original players, Khalida Popal.
Popal grew up playing soccer against boys on the streets of Kabul. The boys, she said, teased her and told her to get back in the kitchen. But she fell in love with the game, and got quite good at it.
Popal was one of the founding members of the Afghanistan women’s national team in 2008 and became its captain. The team played in a number of exhibitions and took part in the South Asian Football Federation Women’s Championship, their first major tournament, in 2010.
In 2016, Popal took over a director’s role with the team and the federation hired coach Kelly Lindsey and assistant Haley Carter (Yes, that Haley Carter) to coach the team.
But the national team was rocked by scandal in 2018 when the AFF president was accused of sexually and physically abusing players.
The team played its final match in December 2018. In 2021, Kabul fell and the Taliban took over. Popal, who was already living abroad, Lindsey and Carter, along with FIFPRO and other human rights organizations, all scrambled to help the players and families escape.
The players settled in Australia, Europe and the United States. Many continued playing, on club teams and in scrimmages. But they never gave up hope of playing in an Afghanistan jersey again. Popal and other advocates never gave up hope, either.
Then, last year, FIFA organized a tournament in Morocco for the players, who collectively settled on the name Afghan Women United. This paved the way for the decision in Vancouver.
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I spoke to Popal while covering the FIFA Congress for The Associated Press. I asked her what the moment meant:
It is an extremely amazing, happiest historical moment for the women Afghanistan, but also for women and football in general, because the Afghanistan women’s national team lost their right and their title as a national team when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and banned women form active participation in society, where the right to education and the right to play was taken away from them.
Our players were evacuated and scattered around the world because of their identities, being an activist and a footballer, and after becoming a refugee, they lost their right and their title to represent the Afghanistan women’s national team, because, according to the FIFA statutes, only a federation has the right to recognize a team and allow a team to play internationally. But in our case, our federation is governed by a government that has banned women from participation in society. So the rules and the laws were not supporting us, for us being able to participate as a national team.
The status needed to be changed, and we are so grateful that after a long-term of advocacy and pushing this sport’s governing bodies, the leadership of FIFA has listened to us, listened and heard and seen us, and they have taken this great step to not only allow the women of Afghanistan to represent the country as a national team, but also they have changed and adapted the statutes that no team in situations like us, that we have faced, will suffer the way we have suffered and sacrificed. So this change is not only for Afghanistan and the future of the Afghan women, but for football globally.
When asked what she will do going forward, Popal said she plans to keep pushing for a more equitable and just world.
“I will continue using my platform, my voice, to bring more awareness, because [this] is the time where the women of Afghanistan, inside of Afghanistan, have lost the attention of the Western world. Football is our platform. It is our channel, and we will continue to talk about their situation, and we will continue being their voice. For our team, It’s also important to be able to perform, to compete and return back to the pitch and make sure that we play at a high level.”
Links
Last year, I collaborated with a group of AP reporters who covered the team in Morocco
ESPN ranks the top 26 NWSL players, so far
Lindsey Heaps talks about her return to the NWSL
Nice profile of the Van Zanten sisters
Why Olivia Moultrie is a a future superstar
Profile of Racing’s Quincy McMahon
North Korea women’s team to play match in the south
Poll shows women’s soccer growing in Argentina
How Man City clinched a first title in 10 years
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