The team is “like a second family in a foreign country,” defender Fatima Mursal Sadat told DW. Until a year and a half ago, when the radical Islamic Taliban took power in Kabul again, Mursal Sadat was a national football player for Afghanistan. And in a way, she still is. After all, the 20-year-old wears the Melbourne Victory FC AWT shirt – the last three letters stand for “Afghan Women’s Teams”.
A year ago, Australian club gave Mursal Sadat and her compatriots a new sporting home to “support the Afghan women’s national team in their return to football,” according to Melbourne Victory. Since then, the Afghan women have played in the seventh Australian league. “In the meantime, with all the help we’ve received, we’ve settled in well in Australia,” says Mursal Sadat. “Life is neither overly good nor overly bad. We all struggle with our families’ struggles and need to support them emotionally and financially.”
Fatima Mursal Sadat is now playing in Australia
When Kabul descended into chaos after the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the Australian government had evacuated the Afghan internationals. Mursal Sadat’s family fled to Iran four months later. “Most of the families are currently out of the country, but some families could not afford to leave the country,” reports the footballer. “They are still in Afghanistan with fear in their hearts.” Fear for the relatives is also a constant companion of the footballers in exile, says Fatima: “We are all afraid that if the Taliban find our families, their lives will be in danger because of us.” After all, self-confident, educated women who play football like Mursal Sadat do not fit into the Taliban’s worldview.
Removed from FIFA rankings
With the flight from Kabul, the women’s national team Afghanistan has ceased to exist, according to the world association FIFA and the Asian football association AFC. Afghanistan have not featured in the FIFA women’s team rankings since early 2022. The AFC also recently withdrew the country from the women’s Olympic qualifiers for Paris 2024, which begin next April.
At the end of February, a report by the Afghan Football Federation (AFF) that was disseminated via social media caused a stir. In it, the association announced a new women’s national team, and Afghan women living abroad were also invited to apply. Apparently, an Afghan was responsible for the report, who is still officially listed as AFF media manager, but had already been evacuated to Albania in 2021 with the support of FIFA. “The association withdrew the announcement and announced in the local media that nobody outside of Afghanistan is allowed to represent the national team and that there are no plans to re-establish the Afghan women’s national team,” Khalida Popal told DW.
Popal became the first woman captain of an Afghan national women’s soccer team in 2007. In 2018, she started an abuse scandal in Afghan football by accusing then-AFF President Keramuddin Keram of raping players. FIFA banned Keram for life. Popal has lived in Denmark for years and, with her organization “Girl Power”, is committed to helping refugee women in particular to gain more self-confidence and independence through sport.
In 2021, Popal also orchestrated the evacuation of the Afghan national team to Australia. At the beginning of January, together with the Afghan Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, in a guest article in the British newspaper “The Guardian”, she called on FIFA to officially recognize the Australian team in exile in Melbourne as the national team of Afghanistan.
Popal: “Everything was in vain”
“For me and my team here, it would mean so much to get permission from FIFA to represent our country,” said Fatima Mursal Sadat. “We and the women before us [in Afghanistan – Anm. d. Red.] Playing football have made many sacrifices along the way. We didn’t risk our lives to stop playing football after a while. We did it to play football again and to show the world that an Afghan girl can fight for her dreams and goals.”
Khalida Popal, on the other hand, sounds rather disillusioned. “As one of the players who played in Afghanistan’s very first national team and fought hard alongside my teammates to make history and make women’s football a part of the culture of Afghan society, it is sad to see that it was all for nothing “, says the ex-captain of the national team. “I expected more from FIFA and sports federations. But they showed once again that women’s football is secondary and not a priority.”
FIFA is silent
She is particularly angry that FIFA did not even consider it necessary to respond to repeated requests from the team in Australia and to Popal’s and Yousafzai’s initiative. “It’s a shame that the organization, which describes itself as football’s governing body, hasn’t made a single statement to at least show solidarity with the players,” Popal told DW. “By remaining silent, FIFA indirectly supports the Taliban’s decision to tell the women that they belong in the kitchen.”
A DW request for comment has also gone unanswered. It also asked why FIFA is not taking any action against the Afghan federation. Article 4 of the FIFA Statutes threatens, among other things, the suspension or even expulsion of an association in the event of gender discrimination.
According to Khalida Popal, female soccer players in Afghanistan are still in great danger: “Our U15 national team is still stuck in Afghanistan,” says the 35-year-old. Fatima Mursal Sadat is also in contact with players in her home country who have asked her and Popal for help. “I feel so guilty when I can’t help them and there’s not much I can do,” says the player. “I’m doing my best to be their mouthpiece so the whole world can see what’s going on there.” She still has many dreams for her future, said the 20-year-old. “The most important thing is to play again for the Afghan national team and see Afghanistan again as a free country.”