Afghan women footballers reunite in exile, earn FIFA recognition despite Taliban ban

In a changing room in Auckland, a group of women pulled on their boots and checked their shin guards with the kind of focus that comes from knowing exactly what they were playing for. Fatima Haidari, a midfielder, turned to her teammates and spoke words that had become their rallying cry: be strong, because you are representing Afghan women. The flag on the wall was Afghan. The song they sang together was patriotic. Some of them cried.

These 23 players had traveled to New Zealand from scattered corners of the world—Australia, the UK, Portugal, England—to train together for the first time since April, when FIFA made a decision that changed everything. The football governing body ruled that Afghan Women United, a team formed entirely of refugees and exiles, could now represent Afghanistan in official international matches. They would not need permission from the Afghanistan Football Federation. They would not need the Taliban's approval. For women who had been told for years that they did not belong on a football pitch, this was not just recognition. It was vindication.

Manozh Noori was 23 years old and living in Australia when she sat down in her hotel room the day before the first match. She wore a T-shirt and knee-length shorts—a look she said had drawn criticism from relatives for appearing too masculine. As she spoke about her family, her voice wavered. She paused, looked away, gathered herself. Growing up in Kabul, she had played football in the streets with boys. She had joined local clubs in secret, wearing a face covering to avoid being recognized. Over six years, she accumulated league titles, national championships, individual awards. Then, around 2018, her fellow players convinced her to remove the covering for a television interview. The broadcast showed her face and her skill. Her brother saw it. He was furious. He screamed at her: you told us you were studying, you said you wanted to be a teacher or a doctor, what is this? He threatened to cut ties with the family if she didn't stop. Her mother wept, terrified about how they would survive without his financial support. Noori stopped for a while. Then she started again, supported by another brother living in Germany who sent money to help fund her dream. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, she fled Afghanistan. But first, she buried her medals and trophies in her family's garden. More than four years later, they were still there. "One day I will go back and dig them out," she said, and briefly smiled.

Mursal Sadat, now 24 and also living in Australia, described what football had meant to her survival. "If I wasn't a footballer, I would still be in Afghanistan, one of millions of girls who are not allowed to study, speak up or choose their own future." In her home country, she had been judged, harassed, told that no man would marry a woman who played sport. Now she worked as a football coach, youth facilitator, and advocate for refugees and human rights. She was engaged to a man still in Afghanistan, and his family had told her she was the pride of their family. They were proud to have her.

Najma Arefi, a defender now living in Doncaster in northern England, had trained as a teenager in temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius because girls were given the least desirable training slots. She persisted anyway. Her efforts helped a team from Herat win a national championship—a victory that changed attitudes toward women's sport in the city. Billboards of the players went up across Herat. Families began letting their daughters play. Now, at 22, Arefi studied criminal justice at college, played football, and made her own decisions. "Having that freedom is incredible," she said. But she also carried guilt and deep sadness about the freedoms denied to millions of girls back home. "I feel I have to make the most of every opportunity," she said, tears rolling down her face. She credited Khalida Popal, who had founded the original Afghan women's team in 2007, with pushing FIFA to recognize them in exile. "To receive FIFA's recognition without the approval of the Taliban," Arefi said, "has made history."

When BBC asked the Taliban's director for sports about FIFA's backing of the women's team, he declined to comment. He said he would like FIFA to visit Afghanistan and resume its support for football there generally—the organization had largely withdrawn after the Taliban took power. FIFA has said any resumption would depend on women being allowed to play.

The matches themselves were unforgiving. The Cook Islands won the first game 1-0, the second 3-0. But for the players stepping out into the driving Auckland rain, the scoreline was almost beside the point. These were not just two football matches. They were proof that despite exile, separation from their families, and years of uncertainty, Afghanistan's women footballers had refused to disappear. They had found a way to keep playing, to keep representing their country, to keep existing as athletes and as women in a place where they had been told they could not.