Crossing the chasm in women’s football in Asia and Africa

Further west, the report card amongst the Middle Eastern nations remains a cause for concern. Afghanistan formed a national women’s football team in 2007 after the fall of the Taliban regime. Though late starters, the country’s federation has been providing opportunities for the team to compete internationally as well as setting up training camps to improve fitness and skill levels. And the Afghan FA does not impose any sort of dress code for its players to stick to either.

The story of Shamila Kohestani is a ringing endorsement of the opportunities and advancement that sport can open up. Kohestani, at the time 19, became the captain of the first ever Afghanistan women’s football team. Between the ages of 8 and 13, Kohestani was constantly beaten and abused by the Taliban, deprived of any education and confined to her home in Kabul.

Kohestani’s involvement in football and her position as the captain of the first women’s Afghan national football team, led her to receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2006 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles. During that trip to the U.S., she had the opportunity to attend the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership program in New Jersey.

While at the program, she met a teacher from Blair Academy – a leading boarding school in New Jersey – who convinced the school to provide her with a one-year scholarship. She has been called up as a key-note speaker at various institutions and has even given a TED Talk on ‘How Sports Impact the Lives of Women’.

Shamila Kohestani (L) for whom football provided an escape route away from her suffering back home. (Getty Images)

While the case of Shamila is certainly one of those endearing stories that have come out of sport, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Pakistan have been at least allowing their players to compete though in prescribed attire, and even have Facebook pages.

Growing the game and having a women’s national team have been hindered by the systematic discrimination that all women’s sport is subject to in Saudi Arabia. The country’s Olympic Committee head Nawaf bin Faisal is quoted as saying that the committee should “not be endorsing any female participation at the moment”.

In November 2011, Ahmad Eid Al-Harbi, vice president of the Player Status Committee for the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, said of the creation of a women’s national team: “Saudi society is a very conservative one, even when it comes to men’s clubs. No one can imagine his daughter playing in front of thousands of people wearing shorts, such as in football.”

In Iran in 2008, President Ahmadinejad ordered sports officials to lift the ban on women’s attendance at football matches. Within two weeks, however, clerics had reversed the decision. In November of 2008, Iranian sports authorities claimed to be making “preparations” that would allow for women to attend the game, despite the clerical ban. To date, no significant progress on this front has been made, though it remains a topic of public discussion and political activism.

The UAE in 2009 formed a Women’s Football Committee that announced the launch of an initiative, which would hopefully culminate in the founding of a women’s national football team based on learning the basics of spreading women’s soccer, looking to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Syria and Lebanon as examples.

The Bahrain women’s football team with FIFA President Sepp Blatter. (Getty Images)

The tiny nation of Bahrain though offers a positive development in this regard. Women’s football has started to gain momentum especially after families started accepting their daughters joining football teams, which had not until recently been very common in the society.

Football knows no gender and does not distinguish between males and females as long as keenness and determination are the main motives behind the practising of the sport.

Libya’s players were distraught, with some even in tears, when they heard of their FA’s decision. Captain Fadwa al-Bahi told the Guardian that she thought the team should be held up as a model of cooperation in a country emerging from years of fighting. “This team is an example of reconciliation. We have former Qaddafi girls and former rebels, side-by-side,” she said.

Crossing the chasm, as far as women’s football in parts of Asia is concerned, to bring it on level footing with that of men continues to be a struggle in the face of some of the barriers mentioned above.

As evinced over the years, sport has continuously shown that it can open up windows of opportunity for its players. It ends up providing avenues for advancement as well as emancipation. Sport brings people together in times of strife; it ends up providing avenues to a better life. The less shackles we put in front of those who want to play, the better.