Interview: Kelly Lindsey, Former Coach of the Afghanistan Women's Football Team, on Recent Evacuations

This episode opens with words from Khalida Popal (in an interview with CNN), former Capitan of the Afghanistan Women's Football Team. Then, Shireen Ahmed talks with Kelly Lindsey, former coach of the Afghanistan Women's Football Team about how Khalida, Kelly and a small and formidable group of people were able to evacuate Afghan footballers, other athletes and vulnerable people to safety in recent weeks, with the help of Human Rights for All in Australia.

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Khalida Popal: The foundation of Afghanistan women's national team, football team, was based on activism. We use football as a means of activism, to stand for our rights as a woman, and to stand for the rights of other women in our country, but also to be the voice for voiceless sisters that were still living under the regime of Taliban. I remember the feeling when first time we represented in the history of Afghanistan, the very first national team of Afghanistan abroad, when the national team anthem was played for us, we have seen our flag was waving, and uniforms…We were so proud. But now I'm calling them, the uniform that we were very proud of, I’m telling them to burn them down. It hurt.

Shireen: The voice that you just last heard was Khalida Popal, the former captain of the Afghanistan women's national team. Hello, flamethrowers. It's Shireen here. I am humbled and, I would use the word excited, but I think considering the topic, I'm just really grateful that Kelly Lindsey, former US women's national soccer team player, who also coached the Afghan women's national football team, and also had a stint as coach for the Moroccan women's national team, is joining us today to talk about this incredible initiative to evacuate and rescue Afghan athletes to safety. Kelly, Hi.

Kelly: Hello, Shireen! Nice to see you. Nice to talk to you. Nice to reconnect. [laughs]

Shireen: Yeah! Thank you for always responding to my WhatsApps. And again, everybody, she knows that I leave voice notes because I hate typing. So also, it's really good to see you. I can't begin to imagine…And for those who actually don't know, Kelly had been instrumental in…I don't even know if initiative is the correct word. Project, or…? 

Kelly: Evacuation.

Shireen: Evacuation. Yeah, we’ll just say that then. Evacuation to literally rescue Afghan athletes, either within the margins or marginalized themselves, from, you know, the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. And I do want to be really clear that discussions about this are very important and need to be nuanced as well. And I trust Kelly implicitly, and I'm so happy to have her here to talk to us about this. We've had Kelly on the show before – I believe it was episode 43 in 2018, when you started really rolling with the Afghan women's national team, and if someone wants to go back then, she was a part of this incredible team of people just doing this wondrous work. Haley Carter had also been on the show, and since then we've also had Khalida Popal on the show too, and Mina Ahmadi, to talk about the sexual abuse scandal that the survivors of the team had to endure. So, we've had Kelly a couple of times. She's no stranger to Burn It All Down. But today we will be talking about this, another lighthearted topic.

Kelly: [laughs] I find that…Come on, let's do something fun one day to discuss. [laughs] 

Shireen: Do you hacky sack? Next time you come on we'll do hacky sack or something. I don't know. 

Kelly: I want to take up skateboarding after the Olympics. So maybe we do a skateboarding one. [laughs]

Shireen: Of course we could. We'll get the sound in there. So, for those that don't know, Afghanistan recently has come under the Taliban rule, again. In the time that they were not in power, we had seen a progression of Afghan women's athletics and leagues, and, you know, the sort of spirited return, because under no circumstances do we want to imply that sports hadn't always existed in the hearts and the blood of Afghan women. It did. And so when this happened, how did this…Kelly, tell us a little bit about how this even started? 

Kelly: I think it probably hit us all as fast and as furious as we've seen the political landscape around the world. I don't think anyone in the world anticipated that within five to seven days all of Afghanistan would just change and that people would genuinely be at risk of losing their life or being targeted. And so I think it was…I can't remember the date, but it was Friday. I remember it was Friday. And I think that the Taliban had entered Kabul, and I think by Sunday they had taken over. So on Friday we had our first discussion. I remember Khalida…I think it actually started with Jonas from FIFPRO who called Khalida, sorta said, “I know you're going to need help. What do you need?”

And just for him to do that was…When we go back to the sexual abuse case in 2018, we banged and banged and pounded doors for nine plus months to get people to listen to us, that there was a problem and there was an issue and these girls deserved and needed the international community to help them and support them. They had done nothing wrong, and they needed us to step in. So to actually have an international organization come to us and sort of open the door and say, “We know you're going to need our help, how can we do it?” And we've had so many heroes in this. But he was very genuine and, “I don't know how to help and I don't know how to fix it, so you guys tell me and I'll get on the horn and start working.”

So on that Friday, we all had individual discussions, and we just said, let's keep in touch over the weekend, and if anything changes let's make sure we have a strategy meeting Monday morning. So basically on Friday we decided on Monday we would make sure we were on top of this, and nobody thought we would have 7 to 10 days. And by Monday it was down to 24 hours. Like, we have 24 hours to do something. And everyone just sort of said, what can we possibly do in 24 hours? And I think that’s what all of us in this little group are so proud of, and we honor each other for this, because most people would say, oh yeah, well, you know, we'll get to that, or we hope we can do something.

And I think we've seen that from some of the international governments and sports organizations and governing bodies is they were like, oh yeah, we're monitoring the situation. Well, this isn’t…You don't monitor the Taliban. I mean, if anyone knows anything about the history of the Taliban, you don't monitor them, you have to step in and take action, or you're going to miss your window of opportunity. So, I couldn't be more proud of the group of us that ended up banding together and everyone saying every minute counts and everyone was going to be on the horn for every minute to try to make it work. Because without that, it never would have happened. Nobody could have done this alone. 

Shireen: And so tell me about this team, which I'm assuming was operating, because you all are in different places, because Khalida is in Denmark, you’re in the UK, other people in the United States, there’s people in Australia involved. So, where is everybody – if you can disclose that information. 

Kelly: Yeah. It started with a group of us in Europe and America with Haley, and we had no idea…I mean, we had no idea how to start. We just started literally monitoring social media and monitoring government announcements around the world. And we would literally say, oh, Canada just made an announcement. They said they're gonna host 20,000 Afghan refugees. Somebody get on the horn, who knows anyone in Canada? Who knows anyone in the ministry? Who can make that call? And then we saw Germany. We saw Belgium. Most of that was coming through social media where we would see these governments start to make an announcement, and literally we would be to each other, “Here’s the announcement, who do we know? Who has a contact? Who can get to the top of the tower?”

Because what we realized real quick was everyone was trying to get on the list. Like, how do we get on the evacuation list? How do we get into that evacuation and resettlement scheme of Canada, of 20,000 people? It sounds great, but how do we get our girls on that list? And you really had to know someone at the top, and people at the top really needed to understand the situation of the humans on the ground in Afghanistan. It's just a different lifestyle. It’s a different bureaucracy. There is no paperwork! [laughs] I've worked with Afghanistan for how many years…There is no paperwork! You can never find paperwork. So, I knew with the bureaucracy of the international governments, it was going to be really difficult to come up with passports and national ID cards, and how were we going to come up with that in a 24 hour period?

So we did a lot, this group, FIFPRO with Jonas and Craig, Khalida, obviously, with all her connections; myself, Haley Carter, we were the ones that were sort of grinding it out and just trying to make as many contexts as we could. And eventually Australia got connected to FIFPRO, and they opened their hearts. They opened their minds. They understood the bureaucracy. I think we all had a…We did a podcast or we did an interview with the media in Australia on that Monday sort of randomly, and then they opened their hearts and minds and they started to work with us. So then we had a team from Australia: Alison Battisson, Nikki Dryden, Craig Foster, and then MP Zali Steggall, who all stepped in. They really worked as a united team. Then we worked as a united team, and we created a 24 hour task force where everyone stayed in touch and just sort of grinded through the detail. And the key is nobody knew the detail. Nobody knew what it was going to take to make this happen when we started. 

Shireen: I mean, I follow all these people. We're connected through the world of football, which is really incredible that that's literally the singular thread here. And not to sound like a Hallmark card, but it's incredible what the power of sport and connection has actually done here. And also, what are time zones? Because like– [laughter]

Kelly: I don’t know!

Shireen: You must have been getting notifications literally 24 hours a day, particularly if your team is partly in Australia, and then is in Oceania then is in the United States. Wild! But also just knowing the dedication…And it's so interesting, because I've been following the media, and I had reached out to Khalida very initially before this actually took place, because I was asked to write something in the very early stages. And she's my go-to because I wanted to connect sport again to it, but again, before this happened. And then I'd been following…And Suzy Wrack at The Guardian wrote a very detailed article that we'll add in the show notes here about what had happened. Kelly, it seems like it's a movie. It literally sounds like a movie script, the way that you're connecting and how social media and digital media facilitated this process.

Because as you said, the bureaucracy and the lack of paperwork, and, you know, people don't have passports in the same way they do in Western countries. Like, papers and birth certificates are not a thing that are issued in the same way. Do people even have this type of ID? So, you know, it's funny because when we think of Australia inviting and opening their hearts, Australia has really struggled – and we've talked about this on this show before actually – has struggled a lot with xenophobia and racism structurally. So the fact that this happened…Was that only possible through sport, do you think? 

Kelly: I think, one, it's possible through human kindness. I mean, that's where it all starts. Let's be honest. When someone who is at a high enough level in a government organization can open their heart and mind and say enough with bureaucracy, enough with all this, we're going to do the right thing for humanity and for the people of the world, whether we understand them and know them personally or not. That is what changes things. That's what makes everything happen in the world. Sometimes people are in positions to do great things and they choose not to, or they're in positions to do great things and they'd rather have their position than rocking the boat and doing what's right for humanity. So to me, so many issues of the world are just based on, “we're all humans, let's take care of each other,” regardless of boundaries and barriers and passports and all that stuff.

Like, nobody would want, especially as a woman, to live under the rule of the Taliban of the past, at least. We can say they might have changed, but I don't think anyone, men or women, really wanted to live under that regime. And I think that's what's changed in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. It's what women's sports had done. Men were at that point as well. That 17 year old national team player, male, I mean, bless him, and deep sorrow for his family. But when we saw those pictures of the evacuation, I think it was the US flight taking off, and men, it was filled with men, the picture, the video, and men holding onto the outside of an aircraft. Like, just put yourself in that position. If you believe that holding onto the outside of an aircraft getting ready to take off is safer and your only option than living in your own country, there’s something we all need to realize here. And to me, that image and that picture, and knowing he lost his life in that, that just shows this isn't just a female thing.

This is humanity. This is men, women, children, scared to live under this rule. So, we're so blessed that Australia opened their hearts and minds. But I think it does come down to a few key people who worked together and said let's do what's right versus worry about exactly all the government rules. And when we get them out into safety, when we get the evac done, then we can talk about the resettlement and the bureaucracy, and we can deal with all of that when they're safe. And I think that's the key to this, is get them out, deal with bureaucracy when they're in a safe place.

Shireen: And previous to my…In a pre-life I actually worked as a settlement counselor in an organization in Toronto. So, understanding that the bureaucracy in places doesn't shift. The fact that that was able to happen in itself is miraculous to me, because that's not how countries operate. They won't think proactively or pragmatically to say let's just get people out and then we'll sort out the stuff, we'll sort out the paperwork and the filing and all these kinds of things. So anyways, I think that that’s wonderful. And just a little bit about the evacuees that you had from Afghanistan, were they all women or were there families? There were all footballers, presumably? And again, if you can disclose, not to violate any protocol or safety or information. What did they look like, and what are some of the things that have been shared with you all from these evacuees? 

Kelly: Yeah, I mean, the majority of them were obviously women's national team players, but there's also many vulnerable people who are part of the sports world. There's many people who had raised their voice for the rights of women. So, when push came to shove and we started this plan to get as many people out as we could, we took a real look at our own souls and said, how are we on the outside going to say that one life is more important than another? So, let's just make it our mission for as long as we have to get as many people out who are high risk and highly vulnerable because of their work for women's rights and for football and for sport.

So, we had the Paralympians in the group. We had Olympians in the group. We had our national team players and some other vulnerable women who were close to our team and had supported us through different stages of our development. And this was a really difficult thing when you say who got out, families…We basically told them all, when we start this mission, you must go alone. We can only help you. And one of the most difficult conversations you can ever have with a young person is you must choose your life over your family’s, and you must choose it right now because basically you have three hours to make a decision. You need to be at the meet point, and we're going to start. So that's a really difficult conversation for us to have, and I don't want to tell anyone to leave their family behind.

But at the same time, if anyone knows Afghan culture, of course they didn't do that. Of course they brought their family, because that is the culture, and that's the beauty of the Afghan people, is family means so much to them, and there was no way they were going to leave all of their family behind. So, many of them had younger brothers and sisters that they were caretakers of, many of them had lost parents in the war or through the Taliban times of before. So, we had lots of different situations. Some brought their grandmothers, their uncle, their brother, their sister, their niece, their nephew, brought everyone to the airport. Not everyone got through.

And that was really one of the stories, is each 24 hour period the rules changed. When they got to the gate of the airport, the rules would change about who could get through and who was able to get on the plane with or without paperwork and all this. So, we had a lot of heartbreaking stories of like getting to the gate and basically you have to make the decision, if you step through you're going without anyone behind you. And those messages and those stories and those tears coming in on voicemail – “Help me, coach, help us, help us!” And it's like, you want to do everything you can, but you're also helpless. We don't control the rules of the bureaucracy.

Shireen: Just listening to that is harrowing. And I want to know, how are you? And how are Khalida and how are Haley and how are people on this like Nikki, Craig, all these folks – how are you taking care of yourselves? Because I know you're still…You told me you were numb, but this is stuff that stays with you. Like, how are you taking care of you?

Kelly: Well, I think that that one major factor in this is the majority of our team and the people who are really on the phone 24/7 was an entire team of women. So, Jonas and Craig Foster were amazing, but they weren't in our core group that was working 24/7 together. And you know, this is a really special thing because this group of six or seven women, we constantly talked about taking care of each other, like checking in, how are you doing? Who needs a break? Saying and voicing our own needs – “I need one hour, you guys. Just let me take a nap for one hour. I'll be back on.” And making sure we try to balance our energy. And then part of that, I think, as a coach, is partly my role in life. My role with teams is understanding clearly what our vision is and keeping us on track to the mission and not letting us drop soldiers and drop people behind and lose our energy and lose our way in the chaos.

So, I think we're all numb. I think to be honest, that morning that flight went out with 77 people on board, we all called each other. We called Jonas in. We said congratulations, and within 10 seconds we were back talking about what's next? What strategy, what's the next step? How do we keep working this? And Jonas stopped us all and goes, guys, I just want you to realize what you've done and what you've accomplished and you only celebrated for 10 seconds! And we all said, yeah, because we're not done yet! We're not done yet. It doesn't end here. This is great. We achieved the first step of our strategy, but we still have plan B, C, D to keep going, because if we can save one more life, then let's save one more life.

Shireen: So on that note, what is the next step? Like, I know until you get everybody – and that’s thousands, possibly, you know, considering the families and the lives that you've touched and you've affected – what is the next step? 

Kelly: Yeah, I think that's probably, when you ask how we're doing, the hardest question we have and the most mental and emotional strain on us, and that psychological sort of breaking point is nobody knows. I mean, we have plan B, C, D. We’re working on things that I can't discuss. But what we really need now is most of the safe evacuation will be at the highest international government negotiating level. This is where we need organizations and countries to step in and make the difference now and keep this going. It's not good enough as a whole, no matter how many we got out. The whole world needs to keep thinking, how do we get more? How do we help more? How do we support more? I mean, people are living in constant fear there. And the women we still have there and the families we still have there, grandmothers without passports – they need help, they need support. And it is above us.

We're a small team and we only have so much power. We know. We know that what we accomplished in a small amount of time was amazing, but we don't have the power or the money to fly in helicopters, to get people across borders, to make sure they can be resettled and evacuated, that they actually legally can go to another country. We don't have that power. And I think that's probably the most disheartening thing, is hopefully we all – there's many groups like us – showed the world this can be done, and now governments, can you do your job here? Can you step in and actually keep this going for a certain period of time and bring these very vulnerable people to safety, and make sure they can live a life that they're happy and proud and that they truly get to live their human rights? I mean, that's the UN's job. That's government's job. And I think we just need to see more work from the big organizations who can negotiate at the highest level.

Shireen: And on that note, what would you suggest? Because you're a global, you know, sort of…I’m not going to say organization, because you're literally like a group, a team. Where do people go? Where do our listeners go? Because we do have people scattered all over the globe as well, as our listeners. Where do they go to…Do they just pressure their local representatives? Are there organizations and human rights organizations they can support? And where can our listeners and where can Burn It All Down support you and your  group?

Kelly: Yeah, I think the organization that Alison’s running out of Australia is Human Rights For All, and they've done a lot of the bureaucracy and the paperwork. So, it'd be great to get in touch with them and where you can help. I think you need to push your government officials, your MPs, your senators. I think that we can create programs, especially in the sports community. If your local sports community said we would love to host two families, five families, ten families, we want to bring them to our community. We will work with them and get them involved in the community. We will support them through their resettlement. So trust us, you help them get here and we'll take care of them. I think that that could go a long way in the world. I know that that's what's happening in Australia, a lot of organizations and sports groups supporting these women coming in.

And I also think, you know, I haven't mentioned it, but FIFA needs to step in here. Like, this is one of my biggest things, is FIFA does not exist without people, without humans. The game of football, sports, Olympics, IOC. We don't have these organizations if we don't have human beings being taken care of, and this is truly a human rights situation where these governing bodies who have so much power, so much money, so much negotiating leverage that they should be stepping in at this point and they should be ensuring that all of our national team players of all age groups are safely evacuated outside the country with family, because they're young and they need to resettle with their family, and put into a community that looks at them as human beings and individuals. And we provide trauma-informed opportunities and development, whether they want to play football or not.

I think we have so many people saying, “When will the national team play again?” Like, that's just not the question right now. It's not about the national team. It is about these human lives and are we taking care of their trauma, are we taking care of their mental health? Are we making sure they're in a good place as humans? And then we can get back to football, if they choose that's what they want to do in their life from here on out.

Shireen: And thank you so much for your clarity and being so concise on what needs to happen. And you've definitely got the ears and the support and the hearts, definitely, of our listeners and at Burn It All Down. And we are absolutely on board with calling out FIFA for doing more shit because they just don't ever step up. So, that is something that's very on brand for us here. And, you know, if our listeners can help…And what you're also giving us, Kelly, and I thank you so much for this, is our practical steps that people can take, because very often people don't know what to do. And you said Human Rights For All is the organization, and we'll put a link also in the show notes for people to contact them, and again, reach out to the local organizations.

Because I think that sometimes within sport we tend to think that we can step back and let governments solve it, but we don't realize the power that we have as people and definitely your group is a formidable, formidable example of that. And I know you don't like accolades. I know that about you. You don't have time for that. But this is incredibly, incredibly humbling to have you here. And I know how tired you are. So, taking the time out to talk to us today is huge. You know, I would have eventually stopped pestering you, but because I know how much you do and how much you continue to do. And just want to tell everybody, this is still an ongoing process. This is an open, living thing. This is not wrapped up in a bow.

There will always be time and space to advocate for people in Afghanistan, and sports is just one of the vehicles by which you can do it. I know there's other organizations who do it through music and through art that are connecting that way for the artists that are there as well. And, you know, LGBTQI communities as well, trying to help however covertly they can, and other sports organizations doing what they can. And very much a simple reminder that Afghan folks are part of a global sport community and have been othered in so many ways, and how Kelly has very beautifully articulated are very much a part of the football world and the sports world. But Kelly, where do we find you and what you’re doing? Or if you want to stay under the radar? Where can our listeners find you and your work?

Kelly: Yeah. I love to stay under the radar. [laughter] The one thing that will be so, so important going forward for all of the players that we have helped evacuate and working on their resettlement plans is going to be their mental health. It is our primary focus above and beyond anything is to make sure that we can fund their mental health for at least two years, because the amount of trauma they went through just to play in the country, and obviously the amount of trauma they've gone through to evacuate in this situation, probably none of us will ever understand. So, we are right now working behind the scenes to figure out exactly how we're going to bring in fundraising dollars for that and ensure that we can pay for their psychological and mental health and their wellbeing. So we're working on that scheme now. You'll start to see it all over social media. I can send it to you and you can promote it out in the group. But we want to make sure that all of our fundraising goes directly to their mental health and that we truly create a scheme.

And we're working with Australia FA, Australia PFA, to try to make sure that we get the right mental health care for them and that, as you said, it's consistent. What we don't want is everyone to jump in right now and then everyone drops them. We're really asking professional athletes, communities. They need letters of hope, they need inspiration, but more than anything they need consistency of care. So often people come in and they want to help, and then they leave them high and dry and hanging behind, and I want to make sure that they have a consistent support system for them over the next few years to make sure they really do resettle and feel good about their next steps in life, because none of them want to be there. They want to be in Afghanistan. I think that's the most important message people can understand. They do not want to be in Australia. They want to be in their home. Australia's not home. So hopefully we can make this their home for them and they can feel comfortable and resettled. 

Shireen: Thank you so much, Kelly. And just again, please keep us updated and informed.

We're happy to share it. We have some of…We don't have “some of,” we have the best listeners in the world, who are empathetic and passionate and connected, and we'd be so happy to share this initiative. And, you know, I feel a strong connect to this team and to you all in particular. So I thank you again for creating space to have us, let us have this conversation. It means a lot to me personally and to the entire team. So, I wish you lots of care and healing as well. I wish I could hug you, but I can’t, because COVID and everything else. So, big digital hug for me, a virtual hug to you and to everybody else. And if we can amplify anything, if we can do anything, please reach out to us and keep us up to date. And we'll definitely keep our eyes on this ongoing story. 

Kelly: Thank you guys so much, we will definitely reach out. I want everyone to know that the work we do is very intentional, so it will never come out before we have a strategy and plan on how to use funds and how to do things. So, we're working to be good governance and intentional and really support. So, you will hear from us, just be a little patient and be consistent with us. [laughs] Thank you guys for everything you do. 

Shireen: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much.