Afghanistan's unlikely football league: eight teams, 18 matches and one city

The last time Afghan football attracted the attention of the global media, it was all down to a plastic bag, a young boy and his idol. Lionel Messi met Murtaza Ahmadi in December after a picture of the five-year old in his homemade blue-and-white striped replica shirt had captured the world’s sympathy.

After Ahmadi was tracked down to the Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan, the UN’s child refugee agency arranged a meeting with Messi in Doha, before a friendly between Barcelona and Al-Ahli, where he was also the official mascot. The unfortunate and telling consequence of this moment of fame was that the Murtaza family had to move to Pakistan shortly afterwards because of fears the boy would be kidnapped, an all too common occurrence in his own country.

Such an incident highlights the problems in a country that remains fiercely divided after decades of violent infighting and tempestuous conflict. This troubled history is the backdrop to the impressive work that has gone into establishing the Afghan Premier League over the last five years. There are only eight teams competing in the league, the season only lasts for three months – from August to October – and all 18 matches are played in one city, but the fact that this league exists at all is an affirmation of the good football can sometimes bring under the most difficult circumstances.

Although there had been organised competitions before the Afghan Premier League began in 2012 – the same year that NATO officially announced its planned withdrawal of troops – the establishment of this competition, the first professional league in Afghanistan, represented a big step up for the country’s football fans.

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Football has always been popular in Afghanistan. The sport’s governing body, the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF), was set up in 1933, became a Fifa member in 1948 (when they played their first official game at the London 1948 Olympics and lost 6-0 to Luxembourg) and has been part of the Asian Football Confederation since 1954.

Under the Taliban regime from 1996 until 2001, football was barely tolerated and there were tales of raids on matches or even games being postponed because of fighting, which created an atmosphere of intimidation and intervention. Occasionally there were brutal punishments meted out, including public executions carried out in stadiums at half-time. Despite the attempts to return Afghan life to some sort of normality over the last few years, the Taliban remain a force in the country. So, for security reasons, the league’s matches are restricted to two stadiums in Kabul, the capital city.

The eight teams that participate in the Premier League represent the country’s eight main regions. In last year’s final, De Maiwand Atalan, the club from the south west region, an area that remains a Taliban stronghold and a centre of insurgency, met Shaheen Asmayee from Kabul, the very heart of the government. That two football teams from opposite ends of the political spectrum were able to meet and play out an entertaining final in front of a full house was an encouraging sign for the country.As befits a country that has grown accustomed to the influence of external forces and assistance, a range of international partners have underpinned the game financially. Fifa has invested $1.5m since 2005 mainly in improving pitches and building the headquarters of the AFF. Both the German Football Association and the English Premier League have been involved, with the Premier League funding coaching schemes through its Premier Skills initiative in conjunction with the British Council. Even the British government have been active. David Cameron and Michael Owen shared a military bunk bed when they flew to Camp Bastion in December 2013 to announce an FA scheme to bring talented young Afghan players to St George’s Park. And the Japanese government has paid for floodlights so games can be played in the evening and fans can watch them on primetime TV when the new season kicks off in a few weeks.

As with any football league, television is the crucial medium. Every game is broadcast live on two national television channels, TOLO and Lemar TV, but the importance of television to the league is even more fundamental than that. When the league was established, a few players from each squad were selected through a reality television show called Green Field. Although a rather gimmicky ploy, it did succeed in drawing attention to the fledgling league. The 2016 final was watched by an estimated 57% of the potential audience, which suggests the league is succeeding in its bid to unite the country through football. As APL co-founder Chris McDonald told the BBC: “Football is becoming a passion here, it brings a lot of joy and happiness, and is something that we are going to keep doing.”

However impressive those viewing figures might seem, they do not translate into riches for the players. Ticket prices are set at $0.5 (with VIP seats costing up to $1.5) and players are given a daily allowance of around $12, which they can supplement with sponsorship deals and other jobs.

The league has coincided with an exponential rise in participation. There were just under 20,000 registered players in 2006 but this figure shot up to 54,000 in 2015. Encouragingly, more than 1,000 of those registered are women players and they have formed their own league, something that could never have been even contemplated in the recent past. There is still some resistance to the concept of women playing football from the most conservative in society but on International Women’s Day last March, Danish sportswear firm Hummel launched a specially designed kit for the national team with an inbuilt hijab.

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There is now a solid base from which to grow men’s and women’s football in Afghanistan. Earlier this year the current league champions Shaheen Asmayee became the first Afghan club to take part in the AFC Cup, the regional equivalent of the Europa League. They lost their qualifying play-off against Tajikistan club Khosilot Farkhor 1-0 over two legs, suggesting they are not too far off making it further in the competition in future years, which would be another significant milestone for Afghan football.

The national team has already enjoyed some success on the continent. They won the South Asian Football Championship in 2013 – the year after the APL was set up – by beating India 2-0 in the final, and their next aim is to qualify for the AFC Asian Football Cup, which will be hosted by the UAE in 2019. Some of the national team play in the APL but many have moved abroad. Milad Salem, a forward born in Kabul, has made his living in the German leagues and Noor Husin is now following suit in England.

Husin escaped war-torn Mazar-i-Sharif aged five and moved to England, where he joined Reading’s academy. Earlier this year he became the first Afghan to play a professional game in England when he scored on his debut for Accrington Stanley in a 2-0 win against Notts County. Husin is on the books at Crystal Palace, where he has featured in match-day squads but not yet made an appearance on the pitch. If things go well for him in the Premier League perhaps youngsters in Afghanistan will be writing his name on the back of their shirts in the near future. Hopefully they will not have to customise a plastic bag to do so – or be forced to emigrate as a result.

In Kabul, first evening soccer match in nearly four decades defies Taliban attacks

By Antonio Olivo October 22 

KABUL — The lights beamed on inside the Afghan Football Federation soccer stadium and 5,000 people, drawn to a spectacle unheard of for nearly four decades, came out to see.

Security in Afghanistan’s capital is tenuous, proved earlier in the week by several attempted suicide bomb attacks around the city while, elsewhere in the country, dozens of Afghan police and soldiers had been killed by Taliban fighters in one of the year’s deadliest spates of violence.

But, on Thursday night, another battle was taking place between the De Maiwand Atalan soccer club from the Kandahar province and the defending champion De Spin Ghar Bazan team from Nangahar province for a shot at this year’s title in the Afghan Premier League .

This was the first evening spectator event held in the country since the 1979 Soviet Union invasion.

Mostly beside the point was that the “Maiwand Champions” cruised to a 2-0 victory over Nangahar’s “Eagles of the White Mountain” in the semifinal match, which was also broadcast across the country on television and radio.

Wearing his Kabul police uniform to Afghanistan’s first night spectator event in more than 40 years, Mohammad Anit Watandost, left, cheers for his favorite team from the Kandahar province with his son Irfan, 5. (Antonio Olivo/The Washington Post)

Instead, the men and women who crowded into the outdoor soccer stadium — tooting horns and cheering loudly at each shot on goal — were out to win back something far more valuable: a sense of public joy that has long eluded the nation locked for decades in a perpetual state of tyranny and war.

“It’s a very different feeling,” said Sayed Omar Anmadi, 23, who brought his brother Alyus, 12, to watch their favorite team from Kandahar’s Maiwand district play live, while dance music thumped over loudspeakers beneath the bright stadium lights.

“We don’t usually go out at night because of the security situation,” Anmadi said. “This offers a fresh kind of hope.”

The event, several years in the making, is part of a larger campaign to reintroduce a sense of normalcy into Afghan culture led by the Dubai-based Moby Media Group, which, with the Roshan telecommunications company, created the Afghan Premier League in 2012.

With some U.S. State Department backing, the effort also includes a popular Afghan “Sesame Street” children’s program on Moby’s TOLO TV channel and a music production house for budding artists in Kabul.

But a fun night inside a Kabul soccer stadium carries extra symbolism for millions of Afghans.

Many remember the gruesome public executions held inside Kabul’s older Ghazi Stadium — about a half-mile away from the Afghan Federation Football stadium — during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s.

Fans who couldn't get tickets to the sold-out game pitting Afghanistan and Pakistan's soccer teams Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013, scaled the walls for a peek at the action. The match was the first international held on Afghan soil in 10 years.

Abdul Hameed Mubarez, a local historian, said those days epitomized the fear of Taliban reprisals that still permeates Afghan society, keeping many home at night and away from large crowds vulnerable to suicide bomb attacks.

Before the Soviet invasion, night events in Kabul were routine, said Mubarez, who was deputy minister of culture under former Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shar.

Crowds gathered inside Ghazi Stadium to watch the Afghan national soccer team compete against Iran or Pakistan. During Eid or Independence Day festivals held in August, live music filled the air as families traveling to Kabul from nearby provinces celebrated with elaborate picnics, often sleeping overnight in outdoor camps.

Now, with the Taliban insurgency raging for 16 years after decades of conflict before, many Afghans are weary of their limited lives and yearn for that same sense of freedom, Mubarez, 83, said.

“People have decided that they will go on with their lives,” he said. “They will enjoy it as long as they’re alive, because nowadays whenever we go out from our homes, we are not sure if we’ll come back alive or not.”

As the sun fell over the mostly commercial section of Kabul where the Afghan Football Federation stadium is located, the stadium lights — brought in from China and installed this month — lit up the night in an otherwise pitch-dark section of the capital.

Fans made their way past a perimeter of security checkpoints, with Afghan national police inspecting bags and frisking everyone who walked through.

In September, three people were killed in a suicide bomb attack outside an afternoon cricket tournament held nearby, so the police — aware of the high stakes surrounding this event — were on high alert. Several hundred officers manned posts or conducted surveillance, a federal Interior ministry spokesman said.

[Dozens dead in mosque blasts in Kabul and central Afghanistan]

Mohammad Anit Watandost, an off-duty Kabul police office officer, passed through security with his son Irfan, 5. Watandost, 32, wore his police officer’s uniform. His adoring son wore a mock camouflage military uniform and sported a plastic toy AK-47 rifle.

Watandost said he came dressed in uniform to show pride in his role in fighting against a sense of insecurity in his native city that he views as a cancer in Afghanistan.

“I’ve gone through so many factional battles,” said Watandost, citing the Afghan mujahideen uprising against the Soviets during the 1980s that marked his early childhood, followed by civil war, the Taliban regime and today’s ongoing insurgency.

“We all want peace and the same kind of situation that we are in here,” Watandost said, gesturing to the crowded stadium of cheering fans. “I played football in my youth and I want my children to play football and watch football. This is what I want.”

With that, he turned his attention to the soccer pitch and, clutching his son, cheered a Maiwand Atalan goal.

On another play, the ball soared high over the players on the field, eliciting a roar from the crowd.

In one set of stands, fans from the conflict-ridden Nangahar province tooted their horns, including the veiled women who were seated in a section apart from the men.

On the other side, more noise came from the fans of the team from Kandahar, a province with portions under Taliban control.

Maiwand Habibi, 18, rooted for the Kandahar team, while his friend Mustafa Sultanzoy, 20, backed Nangahar.

Both are from Kabul and are too young to know much of the history behind either province, other than the constant reports of violence that hit their social media feeds.

But, after spending most of their youth indoors and socializing as young men at small gatherings inside hotels or friends’ homes, they said it felt good to be outside on what was a mild autumn night.

“There is a lot of security around here, which gives us confidence,” said Habibi, who works as a waiter inside a city cafe. Referring to the Islamic belief in fate, he added: “On the other hand, if anything happens to us, it is already written in the book.”

The following day, another semifinal night match took place without incident before an even larger crowd of 8,000 fans, setting up a final this Friday between the Maiwand team and the victorious “Falcons of Asmayee” from Kabul.

While the crowd’s cheers echoed into the night, a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque nine miles away, killing 39 people.

Sharif Walid contributed to this story.