AJE : Women's football takes off in Qatar

Matthias Krug reports for Al Jazeera on how Qatari women are taking up football

Football coaches around the world are perennially under pressure to provide a quick winning formula, but when this coach from Qatar talks about the road ahead the challenges are of an altogether different kind.
Losing players to marriage, unique clothing requirements and football diets are things the Mourinhos and Fergusons of this world will not be worrying much about.

"They are good, believe me, they need just one year and you will see a great improvement," said Mona Helal Al-Naimi, proudly looking over her hijab-clad team of players that has just been assembled.

Breaking new ground

Qatar is known as a football-crazy country, having just submitted an ambitious bid to host the 2022 World Cup, and currently preparing to host the Asian Cup in 2011.

But it is not only the men here who kick the ball with a passion.

This month the first ever Qatari women's national team is taking up training sessions in indoor facilities that are a legacy from the Doha 2006 Asian Games.

It was at the same venue that Ahlam Salem Al-Mana, the President of the Qatar Women's Sport Committee, saw the desperate need for a women's team at a local futsal tournament.

"On the first day of the event we had huge crowds of female spectators; the venue was sold out," Al-Mana told Al Jazeera.

"I could not believe it: women in Qatar are just as crazy about football as men."

The girls who have been called up in the initial squad of 30 players readily admit that whilst they are proud to be in Qatar's first female team, they follow the men's game more closely.

"I'm so proud to be in the first women's national team for Qatar," says 19-year-old Moza Ali.

"But I don’t watch much ladies football; I follow more of the men's game. I like David Beckham at Milan."

Ali, who works at a local energy company in the morning before coming to training in the afternoons, says she has found much societal acceptance for her football passion.

"I love to play football, and everyone supports me, sometimes my company gives me time off work to practice."

Her team-mate and future Qatar goalkeeper Moza Maarij is ready to train hard every day of the week in order to improve rapidly.

"We are very happy because we can play football. For us this is a dream come true.

"We'll train two hours, every day."

New coach

Training sessions are set to officially begin when the team's new Brazilian coach arrives in Doha to partner Al-Naimi in the coaching staff.

An indoor venue has been chosen to avoid sensitive encounters with more conservative locals who may not be used to the sight of women playing football.

But beside their football skills, these ladies are also remarkably adept at dribbling around sensitive issues with good humour.

"Now all the men have decided for women to play football and all kinds of sport because they want their women to be thin and have sporty figures," jokes goalkeeper Maarij.

"And we don't want to wear the hijab," another player throws in as the topic remains ostensibly sensitive.

With a laugh coach Al-Naimi clarifies on the dress code that is expected of her team, to begin with at least.

"All the teams don't want to wear the hijab. But when they play for Qatar, they have to wear it, or at least a bandana to cover their hair.

"We are from an Islamic country, and it is not allowed for us at the moment.

"For the younger girls it is no problem. But for these senior girls long shirts and trousers are the kit," she says.

"If they change it: ok. If they decide we have to wear it, we'll wear it," she adds with good humour.

Al Naimi sees a different obstacle as being more pressing: "these girls in the Qatar national team are all at college, maybe in two years they will get married.

"Now they say: no problem, we will continue to play. But when you have a family everything changes."

Retaining athletes

While participation in women's sport has blossomed across the region as patriarchal societies become more open, many sports federations note that they are losing athletes when they reach a marriageable age.

So will their husbands let these ladies play for Qatar? A chorus answers echoes around the room: "yes! No! Some of them…"

"If he doesn’t let me play, I won't listen to him," one player says of her imagined husband, causing a ripple of laughter.

And as they attempt in the coming months and years to fulfil their playing potential, these ladies already have the support of their counterparts in Qatar's men's national team.

"This is the first national team for ladies in our country and it is a positive development because many ladies in Qatar like football," young Qatar right-back Mesaad Ali Al Hamad told Al Jazeera.

"This will show the world that we have ladies playing football as well, and we will support them."

In these early days of unbridled optimism, future complications seem a world away.

This Qatari women's national team is now eagerly awaiting its first international match.

With similar national teams emerging across the region in a trend unthinkable just five years ago, opponents will be easy to find.

"In Bahrain they have a good team, Kuwait is starting up now, the UAE has a team," Al Mana says.

"So in my calendar there will be friendly matches against all these teams this year.

"We will sit down with the coach and see when she needs her friendly matches."

Al Mana and the country's female football officials are aware that there is a long road ahead before Qatar reaches a women's World Cup, but that is doing nothing to deter these ladies from dreaming.

"Maybe after twenty years we can host or even qualify for a women's World Cup," Al Mana laughs, before adding: "It is our dream. And why not dream?"

http://english.aljazeera.net/sport/2009/04/20094682644844133.html