Kim Kardashian Helps Fly Afghanistan Women’s Soccer Team from Pakistan to London

Leia IdlibyNov 18th, 2021, 11:54 am
 
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Members of Afghanistan’s women’s youth development soccer team arrived in London Thursday morning after being flown in from Pakistan with the help of Kim Kardashian. 

New York rabbi Moshe Margaretten, founder of the Tzedek Association, also helped fly the 30 teenage players and their families to the United Kingdom on Thursday, with English Premier League club Leeds United promising to support them.

The team members first arrived in Pakistan, where they managed to secure U.K. visas, but were left there for weeks as they were unable to get a flight out of the country.

Margaretten eventually reached out to Kardashian to ask for help chartering a plane so the team could fly to London.

“Maybe an hour later, after the Zoom call, I got a text message that Kim wants to fund the entire flight,” Margaretten told the Associated Press.

The plane landed at Stansted Airport near London Thursday and carried roughly 130 people total. The Afghans on board will spend 10 days in quarantine before fully completing their move.

The effort to move the team comes after Kabul fell to Taliban militants in August when President Joe Biden withdrew troops from Afghanistan, causing a rushed airlift as countries attempted to evacuate Afghans from the country.

Khalida Popal, a former captain of Afghanistan’s national women’s team, helped spearhead the effort to evacuate female athletes from the country, as the Taliban views women in sports as a political act of defiance.

“Many of those families left their houses when the Taliban took over. Their houses were burnt down,” Popal told the Associated Press. “Some of their family members were killed or taken by Taliban. So the danger and the stress was very high, and that’s why it was very important to move fast to get them outside Afghanistan.”

Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani also praised the club’s help with the evacuation in a Wednesday tweet:

“First chapter written today! When I received a call asking help to rescue the youth [women’s] team from Afghanistan, I didn’t know even from where to start,” she wrote. “Today they flew to UK. Proud to be part of the team to make this real. Let’s dream one day they will play in [LUFC].”

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