Nadia Nadim on women’s football in Afghanistan one year on from Taliban takeover
Nadia Nadim took up her role as the head coach of Afghanistan women’s national football team in April 2012. Her first job as a coach was to work as a part time coach for the national women’s and girls’ teams in the country as the Taliban had banned women from playing football. “I went to the stadium,” Nadim explained. “I saw the women players and I told them, ‘If you are doing better than other girls, then you are not doing this job.’” Nadim’s first reaction was that she would take the job. She said she felt she had a responsibility to work alongside them and to help them. The following week, after a two-month trial, Nadim was signed up by the FAI’s women’s programme in Kabul. Nadim was one of eight to be offered the job as the coach for all women’s national teams of the Middle East and North Africa. “I went to watch a women’s football tournament here in Kabul,” she said. “We had a good team here. “I think if you see a team like this – with the ability to play on this level – then it can come to nothing that is a woman’s team in a war-torn country, where there is no peace and no life. “I saw the girls who came together to play on this level and I knew God has given me the opportunity to lead this team, to help them, to show them what it is to take their places on this stage. For them to go somewhere on this stage and to take their place – on this stage and to win this game – it is our biggest honour. “I think that is what I have come here to do, to take this chance.” Nadim said she hopes to use her experiences as a coach to help the team in different areas such as the use of a new training ground being built by the government, as well as building up the girls’ strength. Nadim said she
