Khalida Popal on the fight for Afghanistan’s national team to play football again
Upfront - A Women's Football Podcast
Stak Production
4.8 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 February 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With just over a week to go until International Women’s Day, we wanted to welcome a truly inspirational woman in football onto the podcast.
Khalida Popal is the former captain of the Afghan women’s national team. In fact, if it wasn’t for her, the team would never have been formed back in 2007. And if it wasn’t for her, the current squad would never have escaped Kabul when the Taliban regained power in August 2021.
Now, Khalida faces a new battle with football’s authorities. With the Taliban’s ban on women’s sport, FIFA are refusing to recognise the Afghan team. Rachel speaks to Khalida all about that, the long journey to this point, and why football in particular is such a powerful tool for female empowerment.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to up front. I'm Rachel O'Sullivan. With just over a week until |
| 0:08.0 | International Women's Day today we're joined by one of the most |
| 0:10.9 | inspirational women in football. |
| 0:12.6 | We are absolutely thrilled to recognize a trio of truly remarkable women as our 2021 |
| 0:19.9 | Lantos prize recipients. |
| 0:21.4 | Kalita Popal is the former captain of the Afghanistan national team. |
| 0:25.0 | In fact, she founded the team in the first place back in 2007. |
| 0:28.9 | Since then, she's undergone countless battles, |
| 0:31.1 | both in her own life and on behalf of her teammates. |
| 0:34.4 | In 2021 she played an enormous part in pulling off the evacuation of the entire |
| 0:38.6 | Afghan team when the Taliban took control. |
| 0:40.8 | Football is the girls identity. |
| 0:43.0 | I'm free and we can so happy. |
| 0:45.0 | But fast forward to today and the team hasn't played a competitive international match for |
| 0:49.4 | almost three years. |
| 0:50.4 | I feel so sad because all the years of work and dedication and sacrifices as a first women football |
| 0:58.1 | plays that be storied and it's all gone. |
| 1:02.1 | The Taliban has banned women's sport and FIFA are refusing to recognize |
| 1:05.6 | Annie Afghanistan women's teams. She's putting it all in a book with Susie Rach in the summer called |
| 1:10.6 | My Beautiful Sisters. But today I sat down with Kaleida to discuss |
| 1:14.8 | her latest battle with football's authorities and to hear more about our |
| 1:18.0 | inspirational and deeply tragic story. Please note that this interview |
... |
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