Afghanistan girls’ football squad ‘will be relocated to UK shortly’

The 35 young players and their families – a total of 130 people – just missed the airlift evacuations from Kabul after their country fell to the Taliban in August.

The Afghanistan girls’ football squad is to be relocated to the UK. Picture: ROKiT Foundation/PA

A group of Afghan girls with promising football careers, who fled their country after the Taliban takeover, are set to be relocated to the UK in the next few weeks.

The squad, who are mostly teenagers, have been in Pakistan on temporary 30-day visas since escaping from Afghanistan, but faced being sent back once their asylum period ran out and another country had not accepted them.