Girls' and Women's Sporting Life in the Arab Middle East

"Sometimes we face some difficulties, of course. Like, 'This is a game only for boys or males, why do you wear shorts?' --and so on. This is a huge problem we face."

"But I think with time, it's getting better and better."

Masar Athamnehy, 20, Orthodox Club women's soccer team, Amman, Jordan

 

"Life has become hell for us, as a woman we can't do anything by our choice."

"Unfortunately,l my dream  to make it to Afghanistan's national team] remained just a dream."

Sabera Akberzada, 17, Afghanistan

 

"You're a girl, it's not right [they tell me]."

"I fell in love with the game because it's got action. I love it a lot, more than any other sport."

Sarah Asimrin 13, Amman, Jordan

 

"There is no support for women's sports in the Gaza Strip -- no support to be like girls in other parts of the world."

Maha Shabat, team manager Beit Hanoun Al-Ahli Youth Club, Gaza

"On the internet, I see many girls [elsewhere] playing normally."

"[The biggest obstacle in Gaza is society and tradition but I just] think positively about the criticism. I will take it as a motive to proceed and challenge everyone."

Rama Ashour, 14, Gaza

Joud Shunti, 23-year-old goalkeeper, trains with the Orthodox Club's women's team in Amman, Jordan. (Raad AL-Adayleh/The Associated Press)

 

The Middle East is a geographic region where the game of soccer has enthusiastic fans everywhere. Even among girls and women for whom participation in any kind of sport, much less soccer, is untraditional and goes against the cultural/religious strain of what is viewed as fitting for women in society. In Amman, Jordan, 13-year-old Sarah Asimrin and her younger sister might be viewed as coming by their fascination with soccer as an inherited trait, since their father is himself a soccer coach at a private academy in Amman.

Mad for the men's game of soccer as the region may be, the women's game has no real status and there is little interest in financing it as long as conservative interests continue to insist that girls and sports just do not fly, along with the issue of uniforms being entirely unsuited since they typically reveal bare skin on legs and arms. Jordan stands out as one of the leaders in the region, with a network of girls' youth and school leagues.

In Saudi Arabia where only in the last few years were women given permission to even attend soccer games as spectators, the first matches of a new women's Premier League were held. For the first time the Saudi national women's team played against international teams. Tournaments newly launched allow women's teams opportunities in international competitions.

The smaller West Asian and Asian football associations held their own first women's club championships several years back. A women's club championship was inaugurated in Cairo by the African Federation last year. This year's games began in Morocco with a sizeable financial incentive for the winners even though the win was considerably less than the $2.5 million that goes to the winning men's club.

Football Player for the Egyptian National Team. Sarah Essam

 

Financial incentives are provided by Jordan's Football Association in support of forming women's teams, so that even some conservative clubs have joined. A holdup in promoting women's teams is the fact that they fail to generate income. Since Qatar was named host of the World Cup this year, it has departed from its traditional lag in promoting women's soccer, to develop women's teams at universities, holding soccer academies for girls, as a new initiative.

The region's most prominent contrast is Egypt with its men's teams -- wealthy powerhouses -- winning regional tournaments on a regular basis even while women's soccer languishes in neglect. Egypt's Wadi Degla wins most women's competitions. The price has been public backlashes where a victory by the under-20 national women's team over Lebanon led to a barrage of sexual harassment on social media of obscene comments and sneers at girls playing soccer.

The African Champions League is to require clubs in its men's tournament to include and promote women's teams, a move that should have the effect of moving the Egyptian clubs to alter their resistance to aiding the formation of women's soccer clubs. In the Palestinian West Bank, women's soccer is somewhat active, while it has a non-existent presence in the Gaza Strip where its 2.3 million residents are conservative and its Islamist government in Hamas has little patience for women's freedoms.

The Beit Hanoun Al Ahli Youth Club with 20 girls playing basketball and soccer wear pants rather than shorts, and long-sleeve shirts. Their soccer-playing days are over once they reach age 17, when they no longer play, looking toward marriage instead. And in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the country, the nascent women's sport scene collapsed under order of the authorities, leaving hundreds of female athletes without recourse to the sports they love.

"I feel so worried and so sorry for women, young women who wanted to be independent. I don't think women will play sports again in Afghanistan", sighed Khalid Popal, a former captain of the women's national team now living in exile in Denmark, and desperately trying to get members of the under-15 team still in Afghanistan to safety outside her benighted country.

Soccer player Insherah Heyasat, left, gives instructions during a training of the Orthodox Club's women's team in Amman, Jordan, on Oct. 22. Women's soccer has been long been neglected in the Middle East, a region that is mad for the men's game and hosts the World Cup for the first time this month in Qatar. (Raad AL-Adayleh/The Associated Press)