Three young Afghan female boxers risk missing an official invitation to train and fight in the UK because of “excessive” red tape.
Sadaf Rahimi, Fahima Mohammad and Shabnam Rahman have overcome a host of cultural and financial barriers to pursue their sport in Kabul.
They were due to visit London for their first bout with UK rivals as part of International Women’s Day tomorrow.
Instead, they have been forced to wait for days in Delhi for paperwork that has already been approved to be “officially processed.”
The team from Kabul has “invited status” and support for sports visas, but visitors from Afghanistan must get paperwork in India before they can travel to the UK.
Margaret Pope, founder of the Women in Sport Foundation which had worked to bring the Afghan boxers to the UK, said of the delay: “It is a frustrating, 11th-hour development to a groundbreaking initiative ... to bring the women to the UK and equip them with skills and experience to take back to Afghanistan.”
“One of the justifications for the UK military involvement in Afghanistan was to help improve the terrible situation for the country’s women,” she said.
“It is therefore a bitter irony that when there is a clear opportunity to assist some of the bravest, talented and most inspiring young Afghan women, bureaucratic delays are quashing their dreams,” she added.
“Making Afghans who request visas travel to a third country in order to receive them and then wait weeks to hear if they have been successful could cynically be seen as a way of discouraging all those but the very wealthy from visiting the UK,” former aid worker Melanie Brown said.
“This is extremely frustrating, there is the considerable cost and the impracticality of staying in Delhi for weeks at a time while waiting for paperwork to be rubber-stamped,” Brown added.
Rahimi, Mohammad and Rahman are due to train and attend a charity auction in London to raise money for their gym in Kabul, then travel to Bristol to be coached by Britain’s first officially licensed female boxer, Jane Couch MBE.
Couch is no stranger to struggles with authorities — in 1998, she persuaded an industrial tribunal to overturn a British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) ruling that had denied her a license. The BBBC had said that premenstrual syndrome made women too unstable to box.
After years of lobbying from British female fighters, women’s boxing was officially recognized as an Olympic sport on Aug. 14, 2009.
At the London 2012 Games, there were female boxers from Kazakhstan, North Korea and Turkey, while British boxer Nicola Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to
RSS