‘Football Is Like Food’: Afghan Female Footballers Find Homes in Turkey


AVEZZANO, Italy – two days after Taliban fighters Captured HeratItalian journalist Stefano Liberti, Afghanistan’s third largest city, received a message on Facebook: “Hello sir, we’re in trouble. Can you help us?”

Last month, the message came from 21-year-old Susan, the former captain of the women’s soccer team Bastan, who was once the subject of a documentary by Mr Liberti and his colleague Mario Poeta.

“Football is like food to me,” Susan would later say, and the fear that she would never play under the Taliban again “made me feel dead.” Like others interviewed in this article, only his name was used to protect his identity.

Thirteen days after contacting Mr. Liberti, Susan arrived in Italy with two of her teammates, their coach and a few family members. After a flight made possible by two journalists, they landed at Rome’s main airport. Florence-based NGO, several Italian deputies and officials in the Italian Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

The Herat group, consisting of a total of 16 people, passed through an Italian Red Cross-run tent camp in Avezzano in the Apennine Mountains, where more than 1,400 Afghans evacuated to Italy in recent weeks have been quarantined.

Like many Afghans, players have left behind the lives they made for the journey. Susan stopped her college education in English literature to leave the country with her parents, two sisters and a brother.

During the first Taliban era, women were banned from doing sports. Even after the group fell from power in 2001, sports continued to be a challenge For Afghan women and the men who help them.

Inside “Herat Football ClubIn a journalists’ 2017 documentary about the team, coach Najibullah said he was repeatedly threatened by the Taliban for coaching young women.

The Taliban’s return to power has raised concerns not only that sports restrictions will be reinstated, but that female athletes who have emerged over the past 20 years will face retaliation.

Khalida Popal, former captain of the women’s national team, who left Afghanistan in 2011 and currently lives in Copenhagen. social and mainstream media for advising women playing sports in Afghanistan last month to shut down their social media accounts, remove their online presence and even burn their uniforms.

“They have no one to go to, to ask for protection, to ask for help if they are in danger,” he told Reuters.

Another Herat player, 19-year-old Fatema, also dropped out of college in public administration and policy. He arrived in Italy with a brother, but his father fell ill while trying to get through the crowd at Kabul airport, so he and his mother stayed behind.

“They said to me, ‘Go for your future, for football, for your education,'” Fatema said.

“Playing football makes me feel powerful and sets an example for other girls to show that you can do anything you want to do,” said Fatema. He said he hopes it will be the same in Italy. “Now I want to make it my country,” he said.

The oldest of the three players, 23-year-old Maryam had already earned a management degree and worked as a driving school instructor in Herat. He saw himself as a role model and inspired young women by giving examples “because of football, because of driving.”

“I was an active member of society,” said Maryam, a role she was sure she would not have had under the Taliban.

Maryam was the only team member to arrive in Italy alone, but she said she hopes her family will join her. “It’s hard for me to laugh,” he said. But I hope my future will be good, definitely better than the Taliban administration,” he said.

Players say many of their Herat teammates are still in Kabul and are hoping to find them. Transition to AustraliaIt’s where some players in the Afghanistan women’s national team were evacuated.

Last Friday, the three women and their families moved to Florence, Italy. Sara Gama, the captain of the national football federation, some football clubs and the national team in Italy, offered their support to the young Afghan footballers.

“There has been a lot of solidarity,” said documentary producer Mr Liberti.

And on a hot afternoon last week, Fatema and Maryam did something they’ve never done before: They played a ball with some boys.

When asked how she felt, Maryam grinned broadly and gave a thumbs up.

“It felt good,” Fatema added. “People didn’t look at us like we did something wrong.”





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