‘No domestic league, no women’s football, Afghanistan’s future is uncertain’, says men’s coach Anoush Dastgir-Sports News , Firstpost

Anoush Dastgir in conversation with Firstpost in Kolkata on Tuesday. Image Credit: Sujoy Chandra

Kolkata: The images of the brawl between Indian and Afghanistan footballers during an AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers group match recently were no different from that of any other fight in a match that helps sell headlines and creates social media buzz. In fact, the home fans at the iconic Salt Lake Stadium on that day found the Afghans to be a worthy adversary as an intense game between the two south Asian nations saw the hosts clinch the game in the injury time 2-1.

Despite the defeat, the performance of the visitors suggested that the Afghanistan football team, much like its cricket team, is a side that seems on the right track to becoming a quality Asian side in the future and just lacks the cohesiveness for the time being. It however, gives a false sense that football has a future under the infamous and unrecognised Talibani government, which recaptured the country in September last year.

However, when the war-torn nation’s domestic league hasn’t taken place in two years, it gives all the hint one needs to know that football is not heading anywhere in Afghanistan at the moment. No Afghan Premier League — an eight-team league founded in 2010 — match has taken place since 2020, leaving men’s national team coach Anoush Dastgir with a roster of just 30 players to pick his squad for the recently-concluded AFC Asian Cup third-round matches.

“Coaching Afghanistan team is not like coaching other teams in Asia because all of our players are refugees,” says coach Anoush Dastgir while speaking to Firstpost in Kolkata. “In the country, we have no league. Because of the war, players can’t move from one city to another and so they leave the country to play in India, Kyrgyzstan, and Bangladesh among others. Many of our refugee players are also playing in Germany, Holland and some are from USA as well.”

Of course, one may think that having players with experience of playing in the European and other western nations is a blessing in disguise for a national side. However, not playing in their home comfort since 2018 has meant that there is less training and more travelling for the players before matches.

“I only get my players for 8-9 days during the FIFA window,” says Anoush, who refuged to Holland at 11 with his family facing death threats from Taliban. “And since we don’t get to play in our home stadium anymore as well, half of the days are wasted in travelling and recovering as many of them are coming from as far as the USA to play all around Asia. It’s unfortunate that we have quality players but we can’t utilise their full capacity.”

Not just players, the people of Afghanistan are missing the game as well, as football has been the most popular game in the country for years before cricket rose in prominence over the last decade.

Coach Anoush, however, believes football is still the game of the masses and adds that both the sports together are all Afghanistan people have when it comes to finding joy in their lives in a war-stricken nation.

“We lost two games and fans back home are mad because it means so much to them. In Afghanistan, in every village and street they are playing it. Football is No 1, cricket is not even close. Afghan national team is not just about football, it’s so much more because the game brings joy to them. But cricket is not that behind, cricket and football are all they have,” says Anoush, who grew up idolising Sachin Tendulkar.

But it would be wrong to assume that Taliban alone is at fault for the fall of the game in the country as since taking charge of the national team in 2018 as team’s youngest coach ever at 28, Anoush found former president Ashraf Ghani trying to ‘destroy football’.

“Irrespective of whose government in the country over the last five years, the previous president Ghani, he did everything to damage football in the country. He and his cousin did everything to make sure we can’t play. His animosity with the game was down to Pashtun and Tajik clans differences (two major ethnic communities of Afghanistan); cricket has been a Pashtun-dominated sport while Tajikh, Hazara, Uzbek and other communities are more into football,” claimed Anoush, whose father was a member of Northern Alliance; a known rival of Taliban.

Ghani’s, born in Ahmadzai Pashtune family in 1949, love for cricket is well known and he has been seen making public appearances at cricket matches.

As per Anoush, the current Taliban government did the damage to the women’s football the most and it has push its developing national team years back.

“If you compare the situation now with three years ago when we were facing Palestine in Kabul, half of the stadium was filled with women. So if you ask the people of Afghan what do they want? They want freedom, not only for themselves as men but for their sisters and mothers as well.

“Under Islamic rules, we are not saying we want freedom like we get in an European nation but more than half of the Afghan population is women so how can we say they shouldn’t have the right, shouldn’t play football,” says Anoush, whose sister plays second-tier football in Holland.

Efforts are still on to rebuild the Afghan women’s team with refugee footballers but Anoush believes nothing is coming back to normal until there is peace in the country with a recognised government at the helm.

“You can’t forever depend on refugee footballers if you want to develop football in Afghanistan whether it’s for men and women. If you ask me if we have any future, I would say it only starts with security and peace and that won’t come until we have a government who doesn’t detach us from the rest of the world,” concludes the coach, who probably might have managed Afghanistan for the last time this summer, in Kolkata.

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