They face daunting odds at their first-ever Women\u2019s Asian Cup
\nDHAKA
\nBangladesh\u2019s national football team face daunting odds at their first-ever Women\u2019s Asian Cup, but have already scored a major victory by qualifying.
\nIn the South Asian nation of 170 million, social stigma, family expectations, poverty and religious hardliners have long relegated women and girls to sports sidelines.
\nThe first women\u2019s football league matches took place in 2011, and the squad, known to fans as the Red and Green, have kept pressing forward despite deeply embedded prejudices.
\n\u201cMany more girls would have joined us if the community had been even slightly supportive,\u201d captain Afeida Khandaker told AFP ahead of her side\u2019s March 3 debut in Australia.
\nIn rural areas especially, women and girls are discouraged from or even harassed for playing sport, with some religious leaders deeming it indecent.
\n\u201cGirls often had to quit football after primary school,\u201d Khandaker said. \u201cNeighbours would complain about how teenage girls could play football while wearing shorts.\u201d
\nTo stay on the pitch, girls also have to fend off pressure to marry before they turn 18. Local league player Ennima Khanom Richi, 20, said many of her teammates were forced out of football and into arranged marriages.
\n\u201cFamilies often cannot bear the social pressure, so they stop their girls from playing,\u201d she said.
\n\u2018Bitter words\u2019
\nTwo years of political turmoil have only increased the obstacles.
\nEmboldened by upheaval since the 2024 uprising that overthrew the government, Islamist activists have directed much of their attention towards Bangladeshi women, accusing them of insufficient modesty.
\nSeveral women\u2019s football matches were cancelled last year after pitch invasions and threats of violence.
\nWhile the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which won last month\u2019s general elections, has vowed to back women\u2019s rights, an Islamist coalition\u2019s unprecedented share of the vote stirred fears of regressive gender policies.
\nSkipper Khandaker, from a southern constituency where Islamist lawmakers won the recent polls, knows the cost of serving as a role model.
\n\u201cMy sister and I both wanted to be footballers, and for that my parents \u2014 especially my mother \u2014 had to endure bitter words,\u201d said the 20-year-old, who started playing at the age of five.
\nHer father, Khandaker Arif Hossain Prince, backed his daughters\u2019 athletic ambitions, but he noted not all families have that luxury.
\n\u201cOur aspiring footballers come from marginalised families, and it is often not possible for them to provide financial support,\u201d said Prince, a women\u2019s football organiser.
\n\u201cSome of their parents are rickshaw pullers, labourers, or tea vendors\u2026 Some cannot afford it and quit football. I feel like quitting too every time I see a girl leaving the game.\u201d
\nShifting attitudes
\nWhile on a break from passing drills at an early morning training session at the National Stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh Football Federation coach Saiful Bari Titu, 53, said \u201cjust talking about the women\u2019s team is a privilege for me\u201d.
\n\u201cThey faced a lot of protests,\u201d he added.
\nAfter years of building grassroots support for women\u2019s football, the federation is starting to see a payoff.
\nMore than 40 football clubs across Bangladesh now train girls from the age of nine.
\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t even have a national women\u2019s team before 2008,\u201d said Mahfuza Akter Kiron, 59, head of the BFF women\u2019s wing.
\n\u201cIt was a real struggle for them to play football.\u201d
\nWhile salaries for national team players remain low, especially compared to the men\u2019s earnings, the small amount of money has brought stability to dozens of families.
\n\u201cI wanted to offer a livelihood to the footballers,\u201d Kiron added.
\nOrganisers said that as progress in women\u2019s football becomes evident, sponsors are beginning to show interest, and people\u2019s attitudes are shifting.
\n\u201cPeople seem happy now,\u201d said Khandaker. \u201cThey gather to see me when I go home.\u201d
\nShe is clear-sighted about the scale of the competition as Bangladesh open their campaign against nine-time Asian champions China on Tuesday.
\n\u201cChina and North Korea are far ahead of us in the rankings\u2026 but we will give our best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They face daunting odds at their first-ever Women\u2019s Asian Cup DHAKA Bangladesh\u2019s national football team face daunting odds at their first-ever Women\u2019s Asian Cup, but have already scored a major victory by qualifying. In the South Asian nation of 170 million, social stigma, family expectations, poverty and religious hardliners have long relegated women and girls …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94487,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94471\/revisions\/94487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}