Afghanistan Women’s Team Footballers Among Those Evacuated from Kabul

Former players and lawyers along with FIFPro have helped evacuate the Afghanistan women's football team by flight.

Athletes being evacuated from Afghanistan. 

Image: Khalida Popal/Twitter 

Players of the Afghanistan women’s national football team had a very important win on Tuesday as they were among the 75 evacuated from Kabul by flight.

The global football players’ union FIFPRO thanked the Australian government for helping make the evacuation of the players, team officials and family members possible, even as work continues to help more leave Afghanistan.

“These young women, both as athletes and activists, have been in a position of danger and on behalf of their peers around the world we thank the international community for coming to their aid,” the union said in a statement.

The Afghanistan women's football team was born in 2007.

In the days after the Taliban took over in Kabul (17 August) the players had been advised to delete social media posts and photographs of them with the team to help avoid reprisals since the United States-backed Afghanistan government fell.

“The last few days have been extremely stressful but today we have achieved an important victory,” former team captain Khalida Popal had been quoted as saying by AP.

Popal, based in Denmark, is part of a team of FIFPRO lawyers and advisors who have tied up with various governments around the globe including Australia, US and UK to bring athletes and their families to safety.

“The women footballers have been brave and strong in a moment of crisis and we hope they will have a better life outside Afghanistan,” Popal said.

FIFPRO general secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann said evacuations had been “an incredibly complex process.”

“Our hearts go out to all the others who remain stranded in the country against their will,” he said.

Last week, FIFPro also paid tribute to young Afghan national team footballer Zaki Anwari, who reportedly died falling from a US plane last week at Kabul airport.

Meanwhile, ace cricketer Rashid Khan, who is currently in UK finishing with The Hundred, has been asked for donations to help the citizens of the country and has also called for peace in such difficult times.