MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Over the subsequent month, 32 nationwide soccer groups will compete throughout Australia and New Zealand within the Women’s World Cup. A thirty third staff — unofficial, by FIFA’s requirements — may also be in Australia, however within the stands.
Members of the Afghanistan nationwide girls’s soccer staff, which was evacuated to Australia when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, paid a go to to Morocco’s public coaching session Wednesday. The eight gamers attended with a small crowd of enthusiastic Morocco supporters who have been bearing purple and inexperienced flags and scarves.
Morocco, making its Women’s World Cup debut, is the primary Arab nation to qualify for the event. Like Afghanistan, the North African nation has a big Muslim inhabitants.
The exiled Afghan gamers, now based mostly in Melbourne, hope that the Atlas Lionesses’ participation within the event will assist additional construct the case that Muslim girls belong within the sport.
“This is a huge chance for the Moroccan team to show the world that Muslim women in every single country can participate,” Afghanistan’s Farida Mohammadi mentioned.
The Taliban barred girls from collaborating in sports in Afghanistan, resulting in the evacuation of many feminine athletes for his or her security. Flying midway world wide, the soccer staff disappeared from the FIFA world rankings, because the Afghan authorities not sanctions the staff. The gamers have referred to as on FIFA to acknowledge their staff in order that they’ll compete internationally.
“What motivates us is that we are the voice for the women back home,” Afghan participant Mursal Sadat mentioned. “We are a mirror that displays how onerous their lives are and the way it’s onerous for them to dwell in Afghanistan, to haven’t any rights, to be banned from every little thing.
“We would like to ask for FIFA to accept and to qualify (the) Afghan women’s team to represent those women and girls back home, so they have a voice.”
In Australia, the staff competes in opposition to different golf equipment throughout Victoria as part of Melbourne Victory FC. The gamers vary in age from 17 to 23, mentioned Elsedeaq Heidelberg Mosque imam Alaa Elzokm, who was with the staff at Morocco’s coaching session. They additionally work or examine in Australia.
Many of their households are nonetheless in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran, staff member Adiba Ganji mentioned.
Historically, the event of girls’s soccer has confronted monetary or social limitations in elements of the Middle East and North Africa, however Morocco has established two divisions {of professional} girls’s soccer and hosted the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, setting attendance information for the event.
“The (Moroccan) government, the people, accepted these girls to play for them and represent their country,” Mohammadi mentioned. “We’re living in a modern era, and we don’t have to follow the old-school thoughts.”
The day earlier than visiting Morocco’s coaching session, the Afghan staff put by itself match: the inaugural Hope Cup. The staff performed Football Empowerment, a staff representing Melbourne’s refugee communities, on a subject 45 minutes north of the stadium the place Melbourne will host six World Cup matches.
Former Afghan girls’s staff captain Khalida Popal, who was a part of the group of legal professionals, activists and advisors who helped the Afghan gamers evacuate to Australia, was current on the Hope Cup, as have been media members and native officers.
“This game is a celebration of everything football should be,” Popal mentioned in a information launch from Melbourne Victory. “We want this match to highlight our team’s desire to compete internationally once again with FIFA’s biggest competition being held in just a few days’ time.”
Afghan participant Mursal Sadat mentioned that, in Afghanistan, feminine gamers would put on masks to compete safely or would stroll an hour simply to get an opportunity to play.
“There are things that need to be heard,” Sadat mentioned. “How tough it was for us to continue this journey, how risky it was for Afghan women to be strong, to compete, to play and to get their rights. And how tough it is now, to be here, without family.”
Mohammadi mentioned that gamers on the staff grew up watching European video games and World Cups on tv, so to observe the video games dwell and in individual over the subsequent month “feels extraordinary.” It is a reminder of the place they hope their staff can be.
“One day, there will be an Afghanistan women’s national soccer team, so they can represent their country, and they can be qualified for the World Cup,” Mohammadi mentioned.
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Cassidy Hettesheimer is a pupil on the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
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