Afghan women football players start new life in UK with help of Kim Kardashian West

130 players and their families fly from Pakistan after escaping Taliban

A New York rabbi, a top-flight British football team and reality star Kim Kardashian West each played their part in helping dozens of teenage female football players and their families reach Britain.

Members of Afghanistan’s women’s youth development football team arrived in Britain early on Thursday after being flown from Pakistan.

A plane chartered by the reality star and carrying 130 people including 30 teenage players, landed at Stansted Airport near London.

Kim Kardashian West’s spokeswoman confirmed that the star and her brand SKIMs had chartered the flight. AP Photo

The Afghans will spend 10 days in coronavirus quarantine before starting new lives in Britain.

English Premier League club Leeds United has offered to support the players.

There is, however, some concern that the players will be split up and sent to different parts of the UK.

Britain and other countries evacuated thousands of Afghans in a rushed airlift as Kabul fell to Taliban militants in August.

Many more people have since left overland for neighbouring countries in hopes of travelling on to the West.

Women playing sport is seen as a political act of defiance against the Taliban, and hundreds of female athletes have left Afghanistan since the group returned to power and began curbing women’s education and freedoms.

Khalida Popal, a former captain of Afghanistan’s national women’s team who has led evacuation efforts for female athletes, said she felt “so happy and so relieved” that the girls and women were out of danger.

“Many of those families left their houses when the Taliban took over. Their houses were burnt down,” Ms Popal said. “Some of their family members were killed or taken by Taliban. So the danger and the stress was very high, and that’s why it was very important to move fast to get them outside Afghanistan.”

Australia evacuated the members of Afghanistan’s national women’s football team, and the youth girls’ team was resettled in Portugal.

Members of the team arrive at the Pakistan Football Federation in Lahore, in September. AFP

Members of the development team, many of whom come from poor families in the country’s provinces, managed to reach Pakistan and eventually to secure UK visas. But they were left in limbo for weeks with no flight out of the country as the time limit on their Pakistani visas ticked down.

The team got help from the Tzedek Association, a non-profit US group that previously helped the last known member of Kabul’s Jewish community to leave Afghanistan.

The group’s founder, Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, has worked with reality TV star Kardashian West on criminal justice reform in the US. He approached her to help pay for a chartered plane to the UK.

“Maybe an hour later, after the Zoom call, I got a text message that Kim wants to fund the entire flight,” Rabbi Margaretten said.

Kardashian West’s spokeswoman confirmed that the star and her brand SKIMs had chartered the flight.