Bay Area
bringing taste of freedom to Afghan women
Soccer teams run by Americans thriving despite bias against female athletes
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Kabul, Afghanistan -- With manicured nails and a spiffy sports tracksuit, Azita Munsefzada looks like any other college soccer player from the United States.
But the 22-year-old communications major from San Francisco State says she is on a mission -- to give Afghan women the opportunities that she had growing up in Brentwood.
"Since I was 10, I have wanted to come back and teach soccer," said Munsefzada, who fled Afghanistan with her family in 1986 to escape persecution of the then-Soviet-backed government. "Soccer is not just for males -- it helps girls with their leadership, their confidence and their self-belief. And these are all things women of Afghanistan need."
Just five years ago, coaching a women's soccer team would have been unthinkable. The fundamentalist Taliban government that was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 barred women from working and girls from studying. Women were unable to travel without a male relative accompanying them, and if they were caught outside the home without the head-to-toe burqa, they were often beaten.
Even today, female athletes are required to play in long trousers and cover their hair with a veil or cap.
Despite such constraints, in 2004 the Afghan Soccer Association formed a national women's team comprising the nation's 30 top players.
Team coach Abdul Saboor Wali Zada, a former member of the Afghan national team, says he hopes to take the team abroad to play its first game later this year. "At first I was disappointed, I must be honest. Who wants to coach girls?" said Zada. "But since working with them, I have seen real improvements and I am happy. The girls have proven themselves."
Munsefzada, a striker for San Francisco State's team, assists Zada and also helps coach 15 other teams throughout Kabul. Five more squads have been formed in other cities by the Afghan Soccer Association. "They are much better than I thought they would be," she said. "There are some real naturals, and they are quick learners."
Munsefzada and three male colleagues -- two of whom hail from the Bay Area -- are part of a Washington, D.C.-based nongovernmental organization called Afghan Youth Sports Exchange. They include Tareq Azim, 24, of Concord; Khalid Alamyar, 27, of Stockton; and 38-year-old Arian Nawabi of Fullerton (Orange County). In Northern California, all play for a barnstorming team of expatriates called Kabul Soccer.
"It's a wonderful feeling, after all the troubles these kids have gone through, that they still have heart, that they are still coming out and playing," said Alamyar, a former San Jose State soccer player, who says the program includes women as old as 50.
Indeed, the players show their appreciation daily, mobbing Munsefzada each time she takes a break.
"I am so happy these Americans have come. It's too good," said 18-year-old Shamilla Kohestan, whom the coaches call Afghanistan's best female player.
Despite such optimism, most players say they must face down angry relatives before they can participate in football, as soccer is called practically everywhere except the United States.
"At first, my father didn't want me to play. He thought I would get hurt and that it was unfeminine," said 18-year-old Azada Naim, who says she models her play after English striker Michael Owen. "Over time, he changed his mind, and now he is happy for me. But none of his relatives like it. ... They are always complaining. I dream of playing international football, but this is Afghanistan. ... I fear my dream will never be fulfilled."
Halida Popal, 18, a national team member, has encountered a different problem.
"When I walk from school to practice, I have to pass a low wall where boys would always wait to swear at me," she said. "They didn't think a girl should play football, but I love this game."
To date, women's soccer teams have yet to play a public match. Instead, they are relegated to practice games away from the gaze of disapproving males. They are even banned from training at Kabul's main soccer stadium, which the Taliban once used to stage public executions. On occasion, they are allowed to practice on a grass field outside the NATO base in downtown Kabul, which is off a main road and strictly controlled.
"The biggest problem is they have nowhere to play," said Klaus Staerk, a soccer coach sent by the German Football Association to Afghanistan in 2004 to train both male and female players. "Look at this small area," he said on a recent afternoon, referring to a basketball court he was forced to use to instruct 30 women on the mechanics of soccer. "How can we teach them tactics? We can only teach them ball work."
Safiullah Sabat, the top sports official at the Ministry of Education, defends his decision not to allow female athletes to train or play in public.
"I'm not against girls playing ... but the condition is not suitable at the moment," he said. "Would these people (who encourage women's soccer) let their wives and daughters play in front of 2,000 or 3,000 cheering men? Of course not. When they let their wives and daughters do this, then I will allow it."
As for Munsefzada, she is just happy to be back in her native Afghanistan, helping to establish women's soccer.
"It's a dream," she said. "I want to give them the experiences we have in America."