Afghan Women's Football Team Reunite in New Zealand After Fifa Recognition

The Afghan Women United football team gathered in Auckland, New Zealand for a historic training camp, bringing together 23 players for the first time since Fifa ruled in April 2026 that they could officially represent Afghanistan in international competition. The squad, drawn from Afghan women now living in exile across countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and Portugal, held two informal friendly matches against the Cook Islands during the camp.

A Team Born in Exile

Afghanistan had a national women's football team since 2007, but when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the squad was disbanded and its members became part of the wave of Afghans evacuated or resettled abroad. Under Taliban rule, women and girls have been barred from secondary school, university, most professions and organised sport.

In the years that followed, former players and newly arrived Afghan women abroad began organising under the name Afghan Women United. After a long campaign, Fifa ruled this April that the team could represent Afghanistan in official matches without requiring approval from the Afghanistan Football Federation, which operates under the Taliban government and cannot formally endorse women's football.

Emotion and Determination in Auckland

The mood inside the changing room before their first match was described as intensely emotional. Midfielder Fatima Haidari addressed her teammates: "Be strong as always, because we are representing Afghan women." An Afghan flag hung on the wall and a patriotic song was played, with some players struggling to hold back tears during a final team huddle.

For many in the squad, gathering in one place has been logistically difficult: living in different countries as asylum seekers has made it hard to coordinate travel documents for international training sessions over the past five years.

Eyes on the Future

The team's ambition is to qualify for major international competitions, including the FIFA Women's World Cup and the Olympics. With Fifa recognition in place, they can now formally enter qualification campaigns, representing Afghanistan from a distance while thousands of their compatriots back home remain denied the right to play sport.