Khalida Popal: ‘I was accused of wanting to brainwash

Founder of Afghanistan women’s national team on fearing assassination and fleeing country then aiding 500 players and their families evacuate when the Taliban returned

“They tried to silence me,” Khalida Popal says with unflinching clarity as she remembers the moment when, in 2011, she knew she had to leave Afghanistan for ever. As the co-founder of the national women’s football team, and their first captain who had since become the unlikely head of finance at the otherwise all-male Afghanistan federation, Popal’s outspoken defiance made her a target for assassination.

“I faced many challenges, like death threats,” she continues on a mild afternoon in London. “I was always followed and threatened. There was a moment where I saw a gunman coming towards the car I was in so I am thankful for the traffic in Kabul. Usually I was frustrated by the traffic, but that time it saved my life as I managed to jump out of the car and run as fast as I could and hide myself.