We just want to play the beautiful game; football.

Around 100 females footballers together with their families have escaped to neighboring Pakistan over the last week to continue their threatened dream of playing football after a new all-men-driven government got into power. This operation was aided by the Pakistan Football Federation through the deputy vice–president of the federation Sardar Naveed and the Pakistan embassy, which granted temporary visas. This evacuation comes less than a month since the United States left Kabul ending 20 years of military operations in the county, leaving the Pakistanis in the hands of the Taliban.

According to reports, a group of members from the national players, youth team as well as the famous Herat team who are the current champions of the Afghan Women’s Premier League, have crossed the Afghan border after missing out in the first round of evacuations last month.

A British company, RokiT Foundation that also helped with the efforts of evacuations narrated how emotional the entire process was and expressed their pride in the courage exhibited by the players and their families. Reckoning the incident, the Foundation’s CEO said, ’’Waiting for the news that they have crossed the border after getting stuck in no man’s land was the hardest emotional hours of my life. The entire team went silent while we waited to see any incoming calls to say they were safe. I’m truly humbled by these young girls and their families’ show of strength to fight for life, it gave us all strength.’’

In an interview with an international media outlet, Special Broadcasting Service(SBS), the Taliban’s deputy head of the cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq said that Islam and The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan do not allow women to engage in sports that expose them such as football and cricket.