‘Never lose hope’: how a new Afghanistan women’s team helps refugees cope with trauma

“When I step on to the pitch everything else is automatically erased from my mind,” says the captain of Afghan Women United, Fatima Haidari, when asked how football helps her cope with the traumas she has suffered. “I train, I play, and a fire inside me is lit, not just because of the power that I feel at that moment as a player, but because I feel I have many other girls with me. It’s like I’m taking their hands. Like I’m playing with them. It’s not just for me, and I feel powerful.” Haidari is back in Italy, after the first matches played by Afghan Women United. The team is made up of players forced to flee their homeland following the Taliban takeover in 2021, players scattered across the world in Portugal, Australia, England and Italy. Related: Silence over Sudan: why do Manchester City’s owners get away with so much? It was founded by Fifa as a way for those to be able to continue to play and represent their country, part of a three pillar strategy of supporting women and girls in Afghanistan, engaging in diplomatic efforts to advocate for the right of women to take part in sport and providing opportunities for those players who have escaped the Taliban’s brutal oppression of women and are resettled abroad. There had been complications in the buildup to the inaugural Fifa Unites: Women’s Series, a four-team tournament organised to give the team their first fixtures. The rejection of the team’s visas to enter the United Arab Emirates forced a last minute pivot to Morocco that meant pre-tournament training opportunities were cut short. On Sunday 26 October though, as the team stepped out onto the pitch at the Stade Municipal de Berrechid, to the west of Casablanca, nothing else mattered. For those that have followed the journey of these women, of their brave decision to fight for the right to play, of the abuses many suffered at the hands of the former Afghanistan football federation (AFF) president, of their high-risk escapes from their homeland and of their battle to integrate into new cultures and communities and overcome the many barriers and prejudicial treatment refugees face, it was impossible not to get caught up in emotion that poured forth. The founder of the national team and first woman to work for the AFF, Khalida Popal, was among those in the stands, overcome, fearing she would faint. “Everything felt unreal,” she says. “I was having flashbacks, my mind switching between the new generation standing there in front of me, tall and loud and proud, and the first women’s national team to play for Afghanistan.” Fifa’s chief women’s football officer, Dame Sarai-Paea Bareman, could not travel to the tournament as she is pregnant, but she was also filled with emotion and cites the tournament as “certainly one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of my 10-year career within Fifa. “One of the driving motivators of this entire project was helping give these women their voices back. No one should have their voices or futures ripped away from them, particularly for their involvement in a sport. It’s crazy to even comprehend that. We’ve been able to restore their platform and their voices.” Playing with many emotions swirling was not an easy prospect. “You feel the heaviness on your heart, on your body, on your mind, but then you get to exhibit what you’re about and who you are through your play, your game,” says Haidari. “We believed that we mattered and that we would be able to show the world who we are, as women who come from a country where women are now nothing.” Haidari struggles to talk too much about her own evacuation and leaving her family behind. She still has nightmares. She had to force herself to rebuild in Italy, waking up one morning and making a conscious decision to fight for the new life she had in front of her. “From that moment I made my mindset that I had left my culture, my home and my family behind for a reason. That the reason wasn’t just about my own freedom, it was also about showing the world Afghan women deserve happiness and that freedom too. This is the second time in history that this has happened to the women of Afghanistan and I want to be an example of not giving up, of perseverance.” Popal adds: “The stories of our players are stories of resilience. They are inspiring people and challenging the narrative around refugees. “These young women have horrible stories relating to what they have gone through in Afghanistan, how they were evacuated, what it’s like to be a refugee and their deep traumas. They have not been able to take a break, to pause and process, they have had to quickly integrate into communities and learn languages. They are working, they are playing football, they are studying, but they are also giving back to their communities and contributing to society. It shows that when you invest in, support and trust refugees, they give back.” Building a professional environment and support system around players that have spent so much of their lives battling was a key part of the strategy around the team from the beginning. “We really left no stone unturned. The whole setup was world-class and we wanted the player to feel that level of support,” says Bareman. “Then there was the support that comes around that and safeguarding was a huge, huge element.” In their opening game against Chad, Australia-based forward Manozh Noori put the newly-formed team ahead from the spot in the fourth minute. “I’m already full of hormones and very emotional,” says Bareman, who played for Samoa through her mother but was born in New Zealand. “I was watching it with my family at home on the big screen and I celebrated as if it was the opening match of the World Cup and New Zealand had scored at Eden Park. I leapt out of my chair and screamed, it was amazing. There’s this juxtaposition between the pure football, the prowess of the player, the celebration of the goal, and everything else surrounding the team and what it means more broadly.” They went on to lose 6-1 to Chad and lost 4-0 to Tunisia, the only team in the tournament with a Fifa ranking, and then secured a stunning 7-0 victory over Libya, a team they connected with through shared struggle. “As an athlete and as a footballer, I can’t say that results weren’t important,” says Haidari, who scored the seventh . “For us as athletes they were important, but they were also important because of the message they sent. After the win the reaction was totally different, from people inside and outside of Afghanistan. People were thinking of us differently, they were celebrating us, thanking us, and telling us we deserved what we were achieving. Messages and comments didn’t just come from women, and that should remind us all that men in the country are suffering too, they are like prisoners.” Related: Fifa closes on recognising Afghanistan women’s team but players say it is too late The Afghan Women United project is a year-long pilot but lots has been taken from this first foray into unknown territory. “You have to rip off the band-aid sometimes and try things for the first time. There’s not an excuse to say we shouldn’t move forward and we shouldn’t push. Now, we have a huge foundation to build upon and there’s no better group of athletes that we could have built that base with. On one of the earliest calls with the team, we said: this is about you, it’s about your journey, but also what you guys are doing in this project is helping set up the future for the way that Fifa and football will act.” The next step is ensuring all the players receive ongoing support and ensuring those that want to try refereeing or coaching are provided with those opportunities. That sits alongside the different debriefs, the footballing ones and those looking at the project more broadly. Haidari has many messages she would like to leave on, one is to the world, to not forget Afghanistan amid the horrific conflicts taking place elsewhere in the world. “For the little girls, and boys, that dream of living, studying, working and having families in a free country, please do not forget about Afghanistan,” she says. “We are watching the elimination or erasing of the futures of whole generations.” But her main message is to the women and girls of her country: “Never lose your hope and never give up. For as long as this team exists and beyond, we will keep fighting for you and your freedom.”