As Afghan women’s soccer squad is announced, players’ fight for recognition goes on

Five young women are staring anxiously at a laptop. This is the call they’ve long been waiting for. A flurry of mixed emotions takes over as they each learn they have been selected by FIFA for the Afghan women’s refugee squad.

The exiled Afghan soccer players have been pushing for the right to play for their country ever since they fled Afghanistan when the Taliban swept back into power four years ago.

CNN Sports spent two days in September with several of the athletes based in the north of England. They are among dozens who were evacuated to countries including Australia, the United States and Portugal.

“Obviously, it’s just an amazing moment for all of us, I can’t wait to share it with my family,” goalkeeper Elaha Safdari tells CNN Sports.

“I’m sure that my parents are going to be proud of me, and they’re probably going to see me on TV,” the 21-year-old adds before she breaks into tears. Her parents were forced to stay in Afghanistan for health reasons, leaving Safdari and her brother to start over by themselves as refugees in England.

The 23-player squad – announced publicly on Wednesday by FIFA – is set to play a series of matches in a friendly tournament in Dubai this month, overseen by the world soccer governing body and preceded by a training camp. They will face Chad, Libya and the United Arab Emirates.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has hailed the creation of the women’s team as a “landmark” moment. However, the initiative stops short of being recognized as the country’s national team, and that has always been the players’ ultimate goal.

FIFA’s regulations call for recognition by the Afghan Football Federation (AFF), which has banned women’s sports altogether. FIFA’s own gender equality statutes say that gender discrimination “is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion,” but the governing body still recognizes the AFF.

“I am very grateful for it happening after four years – FIFA giving us the opportunity and basically opening the doors and being welcoming for us,” says defender Narges Mayeli.

“But I myself would prefer the Afghanistan’s women national team title, and I feel like quite a lot of my teammates are on the same page with me at this point.”

Mayeli says she remains undeterred despite not making the squad. “We’re going to keep pushing, anyway,” she adds with a smile.

And then there is the fact that FIFA chose Afghan women’s refugee team as the name of the group. While the athletes are fully aware of their circumstances, it’s a term that often makes them feel like outsiders, especially when they step onto the pitch.

“We want more than that from FIFA,” player Zainab Mozaffari tells CNN Sports. “We are tired of getting called ‘refugee.’”

Asked for comment, FIFA told CNN Sports in a statement that “the organization of the Afghan women’s refugee team represents a significant and landmark step forward in giving Afghan players the international platform and recognition to which they aspire.

“Despite the complex and exceptional challenges and circumstances, we believe that we are on the right track and proud of what has been achieved so far, even in the early stages of delivering this landmark strategy,” the statement added. It also said that FIFA has worked to improve the situation of Afghan women’s soccer in the country and for players exile since their evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021.

‘Football saved my life’

Mayeli was 18 when the Taliban took over.

“I was really scared … I had all my jerseys and all my medals,” she says. “I asked my dad to bury them.”

Sitting across from her in their living room in the English city of Doncaster, Abdul Raziq said that hiding his daughter’s youth team kit was painful given how hard she worked for it while playing in Herat. Revisiting that memory makes them both visibly emotional.

After a couple of chaotic months and an international rescue effort, the Mayeli family, along with several of the other players and some of their relatives, made it to Doncaster. Many of them didn’t speak English back then, and they ended up living in a hotel for two years while their asylum cases were processed.

“Football saved my life and obviously my family’s life, and so many other girls and so many other people’s lives,” Mayeli says. She has just started a sports management degree at university.

Soccer as a human rights platform

The fact that the Taliban have virtually erased women from public life back in Afghanistan weighs heavily on the athletes. Defender Najma Arefi is 22 years old and wants to be a human rights lawyer.

“As human beings we were born free … suddenly everything just collapsed,” she says when lamenting the fact that her country is under the grip of the hardline Islamist regime again.

Arefi is quick to point out that women were the most affected by this month’s deadly earthquake – a message echoed by the UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan – just one of many examples of their suffering.

Using soccer as a platform for human rights is Khalida Popal’s life’s work. The former captain of the country’s women’s team fled Afghanistan back in 2011 after speaking out against corruption and abuse of power within the country’s soccer federation. That rendered life in Afghanistan impossible for her.

Popal’s activism continues to this day from exile in Denmark, and she remains a mentor for the athletes. She says that experiencing life as a refugee allows her to connect with the players on a deeper level.

“We have sacrificed so much. For us, football has always been a tool to fight for our human rights, for our sisters, who have never actually owned their voices,” Popal tells CNN Sports while watching the women at a training session in Doncaster. She huddled with them on the pitch before their warm-up and told them the FIFA-led squad “is just the beginning,” bursting with pride.

“We have been screaming out loud. We have been knocking on every closed door to get FIFA’s attention, to listen to our voices, to hear us,” Popal says of their mission to be recognized as Afghanistan’s national team once again.

For now, the 23-player squad can look forward to reuniting this month in Dubai.

“The Taliban took my dream away and I’m just eager – I’m just hungry to play,” goalkeeper Safdari says. But she also can’t shake the frustration over the team’s ongoing battle for recognition.

“It’s just football, let us play. Let us represent our country.”

CNN’s Miles Massey, Andy Bruce and Beatriz Grimalt contributed to reporting.

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