Their red jerseys stood out against the green pitch. Most were teenage girls. Some had fled war. Others had never played in an organised football league or set foot in a major stadium before.
Yet when they took the field at Larbi Zaouli Stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, they marked Sudan’s first appearance in international women’s football since a civil war erupted in a country where women’s participation in sports has long been controversial.
“My goal is to lift up football in my country,” Nura Mohamed, the 17-year-old team captain, said.
“It’s a beautiful, unique feeling because, at the end of the day, I just love playing.”
Sudan’s under-17 women’s national team travelled to Morocco in June for qualifying matches on the road to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The inexperienced squad suffered heavy defeats against Comoros, conceding 30 goals in two matches.
Many of the players broke down in tears after the final whistle in front of a dozen cheering fans.
They faced an older, fitter, and more experienced opponent. Unable to assemble a senior women’s squad in time, Sudan’s football federation entered a younger team to avoid forfeiting its place in the qualifiers. They only started training weeks a few weeks before the match.
“The difference between us and the others is huge. We cannot yet compete at the highest level,” Burhan Tia, a veteran Sudanese football coach who oversees all of Sudan’s women’s national teams, said after the first match, a 17-0 defeat.
“Comoros has many players competing in Europe, our team is mainly made up of schoolgirls.”
A collapsed sport
Sudan’s women’s football collapsed when civil war erupted in 2023. For federation officials, debuting this young squad in Casablanca after years of conflict marks an important step in keeping women’s football alive in Sudan.
“Some travelled long distances just to attend training. Many are separated from their families, yet they continue to work hard and pursue their dream,” Manal Ali Bushra, a businesswoman who heads the women’s football committee said.
To support that vision, Manal said the federation is working on infrastructure projects, including a planned sports city and the renovation of key stadiums in safer parts of the country. She declined to answer questions about the women’s programme budget and funds.
Burhan knew the magnitude of the challenge when he accepted the job of rebuilding a shattered team.
“First, I had to find girls who played football. Then, once I found girls who played, I had to make sure they were the right age,” he said. “Then I needed to convince their parents to let them miss classes for training.”
With the league suspended, his scouting trips took him to schools across Sudan and to neighboring Egypt, where many families had fled the war. He recruited 10 players from teams and academies in Cairo, with the rest drawn from Sudanese cities.
Burhan would have liked to recruit from conflict-hit areas like Darfur or Kordofan, a region known for producing Sudan’s top athletes. But many girls had lost their identification documents, making it impossible to verify their ages under international regulations.
The war has also shattered transportation, turning journeys between cities that once took hours into perilous trips lasting days.
Lack of experience
On the field, the players’ lack of experience was evident. Several struggled with basic positioning, failing to hold the offside line or maintain tactical discipline. Throughout the matches, they repeatedly looked to the sidelines for instructions from the coach and his assistant.
The United Nations has described the war in Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It began in 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into fighting marked by mass killings, rape and ethnic violence.
More than 40,000 people have been killed, according to UN figures, and over 14 million have been displaced, with famine and disease spreading across parts of the country.
The war halted every sports activity, including the women’s football league, which was officially established after the 2019 progressive revolution that ousted President Omar al-Bashir.
His three-decade Islamist rule was marked by Public Order Laws that rights groups said restricted women’s freedoms.
“So when women step onto a football pitch, they are directly confronting that entire logic. They are not just present in a male-dominated sports arena, they are moving freely in it, on their own terms,” Liv Tonnessen, a political scientist researching gender politics in Sudan, said.
Beyond institutional hurdles, players also faced a wave of sexist abuse online. On the national team’s social media accounts, many commenters mocked them for big defeats. Others posted the phrase “go back to the kitchen,” in multiple languages.
A new lens
While Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s military government has allowed international football trips for teenage girls, the UN has documented sexual and gender-based violence by the Sudanese Armed Forces, which he commands.
Tonnessen sees the state backing as a calculated effort by the military to project legitimacy. By sponsoring the team, she said, the army attempts to signal that the state is functioning normally and to align itself with the spirit of the 2019 revolution.
Hala Al-Karib, a prominent Sudanese women’s rights activist, dismissed critics who say the team is being used to portray a more progressive image on women’s rights.
“The main challenge for me is a reform of the federation,” she said, citing a lack of investment in and support for women’s football in Sudan.
Back on the field in Casablanca, the politics, war and debate faded away, leaving only a group of teenagers chasing a ball. – AP
