“I felt quite lost,” says the goalkeeper Elaha Safdari. “I didn’t know anyone, but little by little football gave me the strength and power to start again, to start from zero, to build, to keep going and to keep pushing myself forward.”
It is four years since a 17-year-old Safdari arrived in England, part of the Afghanistan women’s development team evacuated first to Pakistan then to the UK after the US withdrawal of troops and the concession of power to the Taliban.
Nazia Ali, a strong, fast and physical midfielder for the senior Afghanistan side who was evacuated to Australia, also as a minor, credits football with saving her life. “Football is my freedom,” she says. “When I play it gives me hope.”
Safdari’s and Ali’s paths have taken them to different sides of the world, but football is the constant, the former recently re-signing for Rotherham and the latter playing for Box Hill United in Melbourne while they study.
Ali was five when her father was murdered by the Taliban and 12 when her mother suffered the same fate. Her mum had been supportive of her playing. They shared a dream, imagining her turning out for the national team. Ali hadn’t known what football was until her two older sisters began playing but once she started there was nothing else. After her parents were killed her team were her family and football became her resistance. “I kicked the ball as revenge against the Taliban, who took my parents from me,” she says. “I found my sisterhood and community through football.”
Those exiled communities have dissipated as players have integrated into their new homes, some working, some studying, some playing, all fighting to survive.
Safdari says of coming to England: “I was just a child and I had to grow up overnight. It was quite tough for me leaving everything behind, my family, my parents, my friends, my connections. Then being a new refugee in England wasn’t easy either because I couldn’t speak English, I had no friends and I had no clue about cultures and peoples.”
The language barrier affected her ability to play. “I went for a few trials with a few clubs,” she says. “One of them in particular I was really excited about and I think the coaches were quite pleased with my performance. But I couldn’t speak English and I’m a goalkeeper. As a goalkeeper, I need to communicate more than a lot, and I think one of the reasons that they rejected me was because of the language barrier. It was so sad, when you see you have the talent but because of the language difficulties you cannot join the team.”
There has been racism, too. Some overt, some less so. She has not felt competely comfortable at any of the teams she has played with or trialled at. One club she had a trial with this year barely watched her, she says. “I told them I’ve been working hard, sending emails back and forth for three months to just come down for this trial. But they didn’t let me show what I could do. Everywhere I go I feel pressure as a refugee, like I always need to identify myself. I accept that I am a refugee, but I had to leave my country, I had to start again and I just want people to understand what we go through as refugees. I shouldn’t have to tell my story over and over again.”
Safdari was dealt a further blow soon after one of her trials two years ago, tearing an anterior cruciate ligament while playing for her college. “I was away from football for more than two years. It’s only been six or seven months since I came back to playing because I was waiting a year for my operation and my recovery took another year. Recently I signed for Rotherham United FC and I’m back to playing. I love playing.”
Training and studying has been hard, though. Before the summer, Safdari would finish school at 4pm and get the train and a bus and then walk for half an hour to get to training at Rotherham, which began at 8pm. She was always a little early and would hide out of the way. Now she is trying her best to make friends in the group.
The picture has been different in Australia, which took in the whole senior side. Ali was able to play with them initially, the team adopted by Melbourne Victory and operating as Melbourne Victory AWNT (Afghanistan Women’s National Team) until 2024.
Then she was hunting for a team and Box Hill welcomed her for a three-day trial before inviting her to join. The catch? It would cost A$3,000-A$4,000 (£1,460-£1,950). “I told them I couldn’t pay it because I was living alone here and I studied,” she says. “Then I told them about my background, my story, and they offered me a scholarship.”
Safdari and Ali are integrated and thriving. Their heroes are recognisable names: Mary Earps, Alexia Putellas and Chloe Kelly. Ali’s sisters have been able to join her. Safdari speaks to her parents every day. However, they are all haunted by their traumas and live with a powerful guilt of being the lucky ones.
“I have these emotions a lot,” Ali says. “When I first arrived in Australia I kept having flashbacks. We all felt really sad about our sisters in Afghanistan. It was really difficult when friends would text me and call me begging for help. I was really upset and quite depressed.”
News from the country is also triggering. “If I see things on the news or social media the memories from Afghanistan come flooding back, in particular the men who killed my parents without me being able to see either of them one final time,” says Ali.
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Safdari says: “It is difficult for me because I’m here, I’m safe, I’m playing football, I’m getting an education, but my mind is over there and I’m thinking about my parents’ and friends’ safety, their situations, what’s going on for them. Sometimes I can’t concentrate on my education or even when I’m stepping on to the pitch.”
In recent weeks there has been a lot of joy as the pair reunited with respective teammates at talent identification camps organised by Fifa, including in Australia and England, as part an initiative to form an Afghan women’s refugee team. Stories have been shared, including of their experiences of isolation and racism and their displacement.
Safdari is effusive in her praise for the former England goalkeeper Karen Bardsley, who coached the goalkeepers at the Fifa-run camp in England and gave her a first taste of top-level goalkeeper coaching, as she was self-taught in Afghanistan. The actions Fifa is taking are hugely appreciated by those involved, but the players have a greater end goal.
“It was full of emotional love and joy, seeing some of my teammates after four years,” says Safdari. “I felt like I was finding pieces of myself again. It has been a wonderful step taken by Fifa, after four years of our hard work, advocacy and campaigning for the right to play as a team for our country. We are grateful for this team but ultimately our focus and our main goal is not a refugee team. We want to play for our national team and represent our country again.
“The Afghanistan men’s national team can play and represent their country but women cannot. Even our women’s cricket national team is still playing and representing our country, but not Afghans’ women’s national football team. We just want Fifa to be on our side and help us and just let us represent our country once again.”
Ali says: “We are really grateful to Fifa but our fight doesn’t end till we are representing our country on the world stage and standing for our sisters in Afghanistan that can’t study, let alone take part in sports. We are still fighting for them and that doesn’t end.”
They have three questions for Fifa: what does the future for the refugee team look like beyond their matches scheduled for October? What support will there be for players not selected and will they be able to try out again? And is there any hope of recognition of an official national team, enabling them to truly represent their country again?
Fifa declined to comment. It has previously said it is “committed to developing practical and sustainable measures that promote access to football for all Afghan women and girls to the greatest extent possible” and that it had developed a strategy and implementation plan to ensure opportunities exist for Afghan women inside and outside the country.
Time isn’t on the players’ side and there is no fresh flow of talent coming directly from the country. “Football has an age,” says Safdari. “Time is flying and we need it to happen as quickly as possible. I’m always thinking about getting older and not being able to play. Even when I was out because of my ACL I was only 18; now I’m 20. Two years is a lot of time to lose. Now my focus is on playing and not wasting a single second.
“We have so many teammates who are still back in Afghanistan, or in Pakistan or Iran, who are waiting for help. Football is my tool for raising my voice for all of them, my way of fighting and showing the world that we’re capable of doing amazing things.”
