Morocco’s historic Women’s World Cup debut inspires girls even if some in the Arab world ignore it

RABAT, Morocco — The game was sparsely attended; it was midweek and the outcome wasn’t much in doubt: the Association Sportive des Forces Armees Royales, a powerhouse in women’s soccer here, ended up crushing its Moroccan women’s national professional league opponent 7-0.

Regardless, one young fan in the stands was excited from the get-go.

Wearing her hair in half-up pigtails and dressed in a jersey reading “Morocco” in Arabic, 5-year-old Aliae Benazzouza descended to the pitch to meet the players. A favorite of hers, Fatima Tagnaout, who plays for Morocco’s national women’s team and for the armed forces team known as ASFAR, embraced Aliae and held her hand as they posed for photos. Aliae waved at another player, calling her name. During the game, she would make her way to the front of the stands, pressing against a rail, for a better view.

“I was very happy,” Aliae said. Her mom, Souad El Khorchef, a teacher, said her daughter peppered her with kisses afterward in thanks for taking her to the game and asked to practice soccer. El Khorchef told her that is possible when she’s older.

After years largely in the margins, Moroccan women’s soccer is gaining new ground at home and beyond, capturing the imagination of some girls like Aliae, winning the hearts and minds of more parents, and chipping away at a traditional view of soccer as a men’s game. Morocco’s national team, the Atlas Lionesses, will make its debut this month at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the first to qualify from the Arab world, where many are wild for the men’s game.

“I teach (my daughters) confidence, not fear,” said Idriss Benazzouza, Aliae’s father. “I plant in them the spirit of soccer, the spirit of sports. Sports don’t differentiate between genders.”

He said the Lionesses’ achievement “shows how women’s soccer has progressed” in the North African country, filling him with joy. He added, though, that not everyone he knows shares his enthusiasm due to conservative views or to religious beliefs against women wearing shorts.

The national team’s upcoming Women’s World Cup appearance follows their male counterpart’s history making feat as the first African or Arab team to reach the World Cup semifinals. Last year’s run galvanized support from other Arab countries.

Morocco’s 2022 hosting of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations drew large numbers of spectators and catapulted the country to the upcoming global tournament in Australia and New Zealand. It marked a watershed moment, soccer officials and players say.

“The qualification of the women’s team for the finals at the Africa Cup of Nations, the media momentum and the wide audience that followed … breathed new life into women’s soccer in Morocco,” Khadija Illa, president of the national women’s soccer league, told The Associated Press. “We now see families bring their children, … their daughters, to play soccer.”

The on-the-pitch victories, she said, were the culmination of efforts by the Royal Moroccan Football Federation to develop soccer, including for women. Female players and teams traditionally suffered from neglect here and in the Arab world.

It wasn’t an easy path, Illa said.

“Everything related to women requires struggling for,” she said. “We’re not 100% where we want to be, but we have put sound structures in place.”

Those include hiring Atlas Lionesses’ coach Reynald Pedros and moves in recent years by the Moroccan federation to support women’s clubs with such things as salaries and buses. Financial assistance was part of an agreement announced in 2020 for the growth and professionalization of female soccer; goals included establishing a national under-17 championship and increasing the number of female players.

“There’s no success without financial support,” Illa said. “Everyone played before but they played without enthusiasm. … When they realized that soccer can also become a career, the appetite has increased.” Still, she said, large salary gaps exist between male and female players at Moroccan clubs, adding, “We’re still at the beginning of the road.”

She cited a sports-study program that searches for youthful talent, houses girls who qualify and provides them with schooling and soccer practice. It’s funded by the Royal Moroccan Football Federation and has produced such players as Tagnaout, Illa said.

In developing women’s soccer at ASFAR, the club provided players with “financial and moral stability,” which has encouraged more to join, she said.

Atlas Lionesses’ and ASFAR player Ghizlane Chebbak, named player of the tournament in the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, is increasingly seeing the star power she and some of her peers are enjoying in the eyes of young fans.

She recalled a girl sobbing uncontrollably, emotional that she encountered Chebbak and other players. That girl, she said, ended up joining ASFAR.

“It made us feel that we have actually made it to the hearts of young children,” Chebbak said.