A group of young women in Kuwait are paving the way for a new generation of female players in the country through a set of pioneering football projects being supported by FIFA Forward and the FIFA Women’s Football Division.

Under the vision and leadership of its Chair, Fatema Hayat, the Women’s Football Committee (WFC) of the Kuwait Football Association has been playing a leading role in the rapid growth of women’s football in Kuwait over the last year, creating the first-ever Women Futsal National League in Kuwait as well as hosting a series of annual festivals and activities specifically for women’s football.

These projects - which have been supported by funding and assistance from FIFA’s Forward programme and the FIFA Women’s Football Division - have provided women and girls from across Kuwait with the opportunity to meet and play football, as well as creating new role models and a pipeline of female footballing talent for the national futsal teams, including the U-15 and U-17 women’s national teams.

Furthermore - as part of the initiative taken by the WFC to develop women’s football in Kuwait - Iranian futsal head coach, Shahrzad Mozafar, has also been hired to lead Kuwait’s Women’s National Futsal team.

Speaking on the progress and development of women’s football in Kuwait over recent years, Shahrzad Mozafar said:

“I can see a big improvement in such a short space of time. So I think we have a brilliant future as there is determination in the KFA, especially from the women’s football department, to develop women’s futsal and football here. On top of that we have some talented players who will help us progress our plans for the national team.”

Building on the success of the Kuwait Women’s Football League (KWFL) and the rapid growth of women’s football in the country, FIFA has subsequently identified Kuwait as one of three pilot countries to begin collaborating with to develop and implement a specific four-year national strategy for women’s football in line with its wider objectives to develop the women’s game globally.

As a significant step in the development of a wider national strategy for women’s football in Kuwait, an official FIFA delegation - including Emily Shaw, FIFA Head of Women’s Football Development and Governance, Patricia Gonzalez, FIFA Women’s Football Technical Manager, Samar Nassar, FIFA Women’s Football Expert, and Jordan Football Association Executive Committee Member as well as FIFA Consultants Maeve Buckley and Su Carty – recently visited the country to meet with the KFA and WFC and other key stakeholders in the country, and to attend a strategic workshop to begin drafting a national long-term plan.

The workshop, which also included successful case studies in women’s football from Jordan and Azerbaijan, aimed to identify and set a framework for the KFA’s women’s football strategy, as well as confirming the continued support from the Public Authority for Sport as a key strategic partner in ensuring the successful delivery of the KFA’s vision for women’s football.

Speaking of the workshop, Emily Shaw, FIFA Head of Women’s Football Development, said:

“The joint workshop hosted together with the KFA has provided an important opportunity to highlight the significant progress women’s football has made in Kuwait, as well as identifying how we can work with the KFA and its Women’s Football Committee to further strengthen structures and pathways for more female players in the country to play football in the future.”