At the age of 13, Fatima Hashemi came to Vienna from Kabul. It was here that she discovered her love for soccer and now plays in the “PlayTogetherNow” club.
“I’m not like other girls,” laughs Fatima Hashemi in an interview “Today”. “I don’t like jobs that are only for women and I don’t like it when men say a sport is only for them”. Hashemi lives out her attitude in practice. The 19-year-old is in her third year of training as an IT system technician and in her free time she likes to do one thing above all: the soccer field.
Bullying and exclusion at school
But the road to get there was long. Hashemi was born in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. To the surprise of many, football was played there before the Taliban seized power, but under strict regulations. “A headscarf and long clothes were mandatory,” says Hashemi, who was relatively uninterested in ball sports at the time. At the age of 13, Hashemi arrived in Austria with her parents and three siblings, initially lived in Carinthia and moved to Vienna after the positive asylum decision. The school days for the young girl were characterized by exclusion and negative experiences. “I was bullied, mainly because of my poor knowledge of German,” she recalls. “I hardly had any friends and didn’t make friends.” The bullying even resulted in a change of school.
Football brings cultures together
One of the few things that sustained Hashemi during the difficult times was sport. “In the beginning I was in gymnastics, football never came to my mind,” she says. “It wasn’t a women’s game for me.” In an integration fund course, a colleague told her about “PlayTogetherNow”. In addition to various other leisure activities, the Viennese club also offers football for people with a migration background. In 2018, “PlayTogetherNow” founded a team in which women or FLINTA (Female, Lesbian, Inter, Trans, Asexual) people were also able to play football. The voluntary association offers all activities free of charge. Many women with a migration background found their way to “Phoenix”, as the team is also called. “Football has the unique power to bring people from all cultures together,” the club said. “Fair play and the joy of playing are very important to us.”
However, Hashemi did not make the decision immediately. “All my friends said I shouldn’t do it, I’ll never make it and this sport is only for men,” she recalls. The parents had completely different concerns: “They didn’t want me to break anything, hurt myself”. Despite all the headwinds, the young woman decided to do it and completed her first training two years ago – on the Danube. “We didn’t have a training ground or a coach back then. It was more fun – but that’s exactly what it was. We enjoyed it a lot and I knew I wanted to continue.”
“When I play, I forget everything”
A lot has happened at “Phoenix” since then: Between 30 and 50 women now play regularly at a training ground in the city on the Danube and also have a coach who supports them. Fun has become serious: In the DSG league things really get down to business and nobody from the team can be denied ambition – even if the joy of the game should never be missing, as Hashemi confirms. It soon became apparent that the parents were right: “You can’t play football without bruises,” laughs Hashemi, recalling many an injury.
Coach Omid Mansouri is enthusiastic about the young talent: “She is very disciplined and was one of the few players who never missed a match or training session. She always got the most out of training and her determination made it difficult within a few months to win a duel against them”. But Hashemi was not only enthusiastic about football, emphasizes her coach. She also helped the team a lot in the area of inclusion. “Through her talent and her motivation, she motivated a lot of women to play football.” Today, as our youngest player and captain, Hashemi leads the team with confidence and also takes on the task of speaking to the referees on the pitch. For Mansouri, she is an integral part of the team: “She is not only a role model for women with a migration background, but also for all women in our team.”
Life without football would no longer be possible for Hashemi. For them, sport is a balance to the often stressful everyday life. “When I play, I forget everything, my head is completely free”. But that’s not all: the young athlete has also made friends through football. “We’re like a big family and I can’t imagine that PlayTogetherNow didn’t exist,” she says. Her biggest wish would be to play in a professional league one day. When asked who her role model is, she replies like a shot: “Of course it’s me!”
From theater workshops to swimming lessons
In addition to football, the “PlayTogetherNow” club also offers numerous other leisure activities for people with a migration background. This includes joint cooking events, a theater group or swimming courses. By the way, the next play is planned for May and is about intercultural perspectives on love. The offers are free of charge, the association works on a voluntary basis and depends on donations. More information is available on the PlayTogetherNow website.
