Qatar’s Invisible Female Soccer Players Are Qatar’s Fans “Fake”? A fan comparison between the 2018 World Cup and the 2022 World Cup

Women also play football in Qatar. Theoretically.

At least in 2009, the Qatar women’s national football team was established. A year earlier, the Gulf state received the commitment for this year’s FIFA World Cup. Chance?

The fact is that FIFA, when awarding the World Cup in 2010, set the promotion of women’s and girls’ football as a condition. Today there is hardly any information about Qatar women’s team.

One gets the impression that the narrative of free and strong Qatari women, which Qatar is currently trying so vehemently to establish, is crumbling at the latest once the focus on women’s football is tightened in the country. And this is what we do now:

The invisible kickers

In 2014, the Qatar women’s team played their last international match. Meanwhile, there is no trace of the team in the FIFA world rankings. The reason: Inactive teams – those that haven’t played for at least 18 months – are dropped from the rankings.

There is also no mention of a women’s national team on the official Qatar Football Federation website. Because in Qatar, the national team and the women’s league, which was founded in 2012, are not subordinate to the football association, but to a women’s sports committee.

And yet this women’s team still exists. At least somehow. Because a team from Arte found the team in 2022. Maybe it’s because football is not that important in the Arab country, but Arte reported that the team until 90 percent of immigrants to exist. These come from Kenya, France and the US. Not much more is known about the team.

The training takes place in complete isolation. Because as long as no one is looking, some Qatari talents from conservative families will also play along.

One of these Qatari talents is 20-year-old Fatma. She spoke to “Deutschlandfunk Kultur” about how she towers over everyone at the University of Doha in football. However, the young woman is denied a career as a footballer because her family is against:

And then Fatma says something that sums up the whole dilemma of women’s sports in the ultra-conservative country:

It is not known what Fatma’s real name is. She only gave the interview anonymously.

Mobile phones and cameras must be handed in before training sessions and competitions so that no photos can be taken. Only female spectators are allowed at matches.

That conservative families stand in the way of talented players is also confirmed by one of the few people who should know: former coach of the Qatar women’s national team, Monica Staab. The German coached the team in 2013 for a good year. She told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2013:

Staab reveals what she replied to such nonsense in the World Cup edition of “11Freunde” magazine:

Apparently it made no sense. Because the team played its last official match against Bahrain on April 19, 2014. It was the last game under Staab. After that, the team disappeared from the international lawn.

Occasionally a few women take part in the competition – but this happens only irregularly and is not even under the authority of the Football Association.

The five not so invisible kickers

There is special treatment for five selected Qatari women. In an exchange program, they can benefit from America’s experience of the Gulf state when it comes to women’s football. This is part of the “Women’s Football QatarExchange Champions in Sports and Life” support program. Sponsored by the US Embassy in Qatar.

The program’s website states:

The five talents are Shaima Abdullah A. al-Siyabi (goalkeeper), Suaad Salim R. al-Hashimi (former captain), Dwana Khalifa (former international), Hagar Nader Nessim Aziz Saleh and Abeer Ahmed al-Kuwari. Photos of four of the five are on the website.

The first part of the football program took place in the US last September. Photos were diligently shared on Instagram. The second half of the program will take place in Qatar in February 2023.

The funding program website states:

watson has attempted to contact program officials, but has not received a response.

No trace of the current coach

Since the departure of coach Staab in 2014, the team has been increasingly in the dark. Staab is disappointed by this development. In an interview with the renowned football magazine “Kicker” she said in 2021:

Staab is a football giant in the industry and has provided football development assistance – first in Bahrain, then in Qatar and now in Saudi Arabia.

And especially with the national women’s team from Qatar, she achieved great success: after the kickers went down mercilessly in their first games (0:17 against Bahrain and 0:18 against Palestine), they lost their first game against the Maldives under the leadership of Staab only 0:1. The German then turned the team upside down and scouted young talents for the national team in schools. In the following eight months, she accompanied her team to eleven international matches.

But in patriarchal Qatar:

She explains why her contract with Qatar was not renewed despite her success: they want a man who speaks Arabic, as she told Spiegel in 2019 and recently “11 Friends”.

Although the team’s breadcrumbs are almost completely lost after Staab’s departure, the team should still exist. At least, that’s what Saleh – one of the five talents in the exchange program – says about the magazine “11 Freunde”. Saleh was discovered by Staab at the age of 14 and included in the national team. Today, she firmly believes that the national team will soon be on the rise again.

In fact, the women’s national team has been on the field recently, albeit out of the spotlight: in 2020 for a friendly against the American professional team Washington Spirit and in 2021 in an unofficial international match against Afghanistan. This match took place at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha, one of the venues for the Men’s World Cup. But of course without cameras or male viewers.

Qatar lost both games.

The current coach is probably called Feddah Alabdullah. At least there is a post on Facebook from August this year showing Alabdullah motivating young schoolgirls to play football – and tagged as the coach of the women’s national team. Watson was unable to reach the woman.

Qatar may be doing everything it can right now to build a progressive international image of itself and of women’s and human rights in the country. But the The invisibility of the women’s national team symbolizes the position of women in the country: Women have fewer rights than men in all aspects of life, always under the supervision of a man. Many women are covered and invisible in public.

Young women like the anonymous Fatma or Staab’s protege Saleh can only keep balancing between tradition and modernization. As pioneers on the football field.