In its efforts to help rebuild the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) following the fall of the Taliban, FIFA has always focused on ensuring that women’s football would not be forgotten. As ten percent of FIFA’s Financial Assistance Programme funding (USD 25,000) had to be spent on the women’s game, slowly but surely women’s football began to move forward, and as this mandatory figure increased to 15% (or USD 37,500) in 2008, further development can be expected. The first women’s football activities in Afghanistan – girls’ football in schools – were fully financed by FAP funding.
FIFA is also supporting the “Learn&Play” project in Kabul as it gives boys and girls an education as well as the opportunity to play football on a regular basis. In August 2005, three-time FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year Birgit Prinz visited the project at FIFA’s request and it proved to be the best possible form of advertising for women’s football as it encouraged more Afghan women to take up the sport.
FIFA also organised a women’s football seminar in Doha in March 2006 that was attended by delegations from Afghanistan as well from 12 other Muslim countries. The seminar, which also drafted a strategic plan for women’s football at the AFF and gave participants the opportunity to exchange experiences, gave women’s football in Afghanistan another welcome boost. It goes without saying that FIFA has also been only too happy to support the newly formed Afghan women’s national team by, for example, organising the team’s first training camp in Pakistan and providing the kit and equipment for their second camp in Germany.

The Afghanistan women’s national team held its first ever official training camp under the watchful eye of German coach Klaus Stark at the Ruit sports school in Ostfildern (Germany) from 21 January to 1 February – and the 18 young women were finally able to play football without fear of persecution. “Just playing in Afghanistan is danger¬ous. There are people who don’t like to see women playing football. Any day could be your last. We pray that the Taliban never think about stopping us, but until now, it has been worth taking that risk,” says Stark about his dangerous work in Kabul. Stark, a roving coach employed by the German football association (DFB), has been in Kabul for four years as part of a project launched in 2003 by the Ger¬man Olympic sport federation (DOSB), the German government and the DFB. Stark is working wonders under trying conditions, forever having to improvise as the country’s sporting infrastructure has been destroyed during 30 years of conflict. As if that were not enough, women do not exactly have an easy life in Afghanistan, and up until the end of Taliban rule in 2001, they were not even allowed to venture out alone. “We play on international armed forces territory, always behind closed doors. We had a lot of problems at the start because fathers often didn’t allow their daughters to play. But now parents are starting to be proud of their girls,” ex¬plains Stark, who is largely responsible for the fact that there are already 22 teams in and around Kabul. Their courage is not boundless, how¬ever. “It all depends on the situation. Whenever there are attacks and the mood in the city darkens, then of course families don’t want to let their daughters play football,” says Stark, who has taken a temporary time-out from his position in view of the cur¬rent situation in Afghanistan: “There have been threats of attacks so I will keep a close eye on the situation over the next few months and then decide whether to go back.” The 54-year-old’s caution is hardly sur¬prising. “You are safest if don’t stand out from the crowd, “he says. “That’s why I don’t have a bodyguard.” Stark has also seen the dangers of Kabul at first hand, explaining that he was once in an internet cafe that was blown up just 24 hours later.
Although fraught with danger, the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) is determined to continue its work. “Families allow their daughters to play football because the girls stand up for themselves. It’s all about women ex¬ercising their rights. That is why this trip to Germany is also a symbol of their freedom,” explained AFF Presi¬dent Keramuddin Karim.

FIFA received the first ever royal visit at its headquarters on Monday 28 January when His Majesty Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, Sultan of the region of Bamum in Cameroon, and his wife came to meet the FIFA President in Zurich. Sultan Mbombo was in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, but he was very keen to make the short trip to Zurich to meet Joseph S. Blatter and visit FIFA’s offices. Despite the fact that he has held the post of Cameroon Minister for Sports on three occasions and was also the first ever president of the Cameroon football association (FECAFOOT), the Sultan had never previously had the opportunity to come to Zurich.