While the world of Association football women’s football at the world Cup celebrates, he kicks him in other regions with feet. The sexual abuse of Afghan national the game is for the FIFA, just an annoying side note.
Dare to shine! Have to Shine up the courage to! This is the Motto of this women’s football world Cup. Posters with this slogan hanging everywhere, in the inner cities and the stadiums of France, they flicker on the screen and send the message out into the world. In a spot advertising a prominent player, what do you understand by these three words. So Pablo Aimar, the former Argentine national team player and current Co-coach says: “Be yourself, make yourself free of all the pressure of the prejudices.” “You have the opportunity to do something Extraordinary and Special,” says the German Ex-national player Célia Šašić. And Brazil’s record player Marta explains: “It’s supposed to motivate you, in your life to take risks, that you need to not be afraid to make mistakes.”
While currently in France, the best female players in the world play for the world title, to fight the Afghan national game to something much more important than a trophy: to be heard. Would. To their own identity. You have dared to say something that is not tolerated in their society: That they are harassed by officials of their own Association, sexually, raped, physically and mentally abused have been and will be.
Beautiful heal FIFA world
“You have abandoned your whole life, everything you have fought for: to play for your country at football, to make people proud,” said coach Kelly Lindsey with tears in her eyes and faltering voice, at a press conference of the “AFDP Global”, an organization that promotes tolerance and respect in football. “Although the young women have had the courage to tell the truth, you need to hide now. You can’t show your face, be violated. Their families are threatened.”
Courageous women: the Afghan women’s national football team
Eight hours later, only around 20 kilometres from the old town of Lyon, the FIFA in the “Parc Olympique Lyonnais”, the anpfeifen stronghold of women’s football, the second semi-final of the world Cup. Good-humored spectators from all over the world to buy the official fan shops of the FIFA empty and are celebrating and the two Teams, the Netherlands and Sweden.
“Something happens”
“In February, March of last year, we were in for a training camp in Jordan, and the game began slowly at first, then ever more strongly, to complain about the two travelling male officials, who were always travelling in,” reports the Afghan national trainer Lindsey in an interview with Deutsche Welle. “This would bother you, in your room, forcing you to come into their room the girls were all uncomfortable. Rumors of sexual abuse made the rounds.” The former U.S. national player informed immediately of the Afghan football Federation AFF. The Reaction? “Something like this happens.” Also in the case of FIFA, it was hard to find in this. When she finally found someone who was willing to deal with the topic, it felt like an eight-month tennis match, says Lindsey.
Afghanistan National Team Coach: Kelly Lindsey
“It went back and forth. We tried to draw, FIFA is responsible. Wanted to submit the Problem to the UN, back to FIFA, back to the UN.” The feeling that something is actually being done, had not Lindsey. “Meanwhile, the girls were becoming more and more desperate, continued to be abused. We had to somehow make sure that they were safe. We had to try to bring them out of the country, so that they could talk openly.” The feeling of having no voice, not heard, was the worst of it, says the trainer: “It is frightening to learn that no one listens to you, that you should just continue as if nothing had happened.”
Between Rapinoe-delusion(sense) and reality
The business of football continues, as if nothing had happened. The media, too, play with, celebrate prominent players in the fight for equality and against discrimination. Every station, every newspaper, every Website reports the US-American Megan Rapinoe, who does not want to go with a possible title win “in the fucking White house.”, the 33-Year-old said. The issue of abuse is too heavy, that it would sell well.
A day after the start of the women’s world Cup, FIFA released a Statement on their website, hidden deep in the navigation menu that “is Mr. Keramuudin Karim, former President of the Afghan football Association and former FIFA member, guilty of his Position, exploited by various female game women sexually abused.” FIFA locks Karim a life sentence, he must pay a fine. Other officials that should have bothered the players also are not mentioned.
Ethical
Founder of AFDP Global: Prince Ali (2.v.l.)
“The other defendants are members of the Afghan football Association. The government has started investigations. The Secretary-General has received a travel ban imposed,” explains Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, the founder of the “AFDP Global” compared to the DW. “But at the same time, the Secretary-General was elected as the representative of the Asian football Confederation in FIFA. This is completely bizarre that he has passed the integrity check by the FIFA.”
“FIFA will sweep the Problem under the carpet,” says the Afghan national team coach Lindsey. The life-long suspension of a single man just happens “to show the world that we have done something. But FIFA needs to do something to a systematic change. Perpetrators must be held accountable and victims are protected. It is simply not enough.”
“Infantino is a shame”
Lindsey accuses, in particular, the President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino criminal negligent inaction: “It is a shame. He has lost his integrity. And to be honest, He is not my President. He is not to own FIFA on human rights policies. He should not be President, after all, how FIFA handled this scandal.”
Infantino will be on Sunday at the stadium in Lyon, when the football champion to be crowned. He will say, to Shine that is the game inside the courage and confetti rain the world Cup trophy present. On the abuse of Afghan needed to be national players, he will lose, by contrast, not a single word.