Her father was killed by the Taliban and the family had to flee from Afghanistan to Denmark in a truck.
Since then, medical graduate Nadia Nadim has written history in the Danish national team shirt and has been standing firm in the storm for her critical post of the World Cup in Qatar.
– If something happens against me, my mentality is that I am against the world.
Soccer star Nadia Nadim walked with easy strides across the soccer field at the stadium in Elsinore during the Denmark national team’s first rally day ahead of the European Championship in England. Now, for the first time, the 34-year-old explains why she chose to serve as an ambassador for the Men’s World Cup in Qatar.
A tournament surrounded by allegations of corruption in a country where more than 6,000 guest workers have been murdered in connection with the construction of World Cup arenas.
– Nadia Nadim, one of Denmark’s stars at Friday’s European Championship premiere against Germany, said it’s a great opportunity to make a difference, without shaking her voice.
– As a woman with an Islamic background, I can show that women are happy to love football and that they have the same rights as men.
He came to Denmark at the age of eleven
It has been more than 22 years since Nadia Nadim first set foot in Denmark. Early on Easter 2000, 11-year-old Nadia, her mother and four sisters got out of a truck. The road outside of Randers in Denmark was deserted, and although the original plan was for the driver to drive the family to relatives in England, the journey from Afghanistan was finally over.
– I had never heard of Denmark, but at that time it did not matter. She said a few years ago on a Danish radio documentary “Nedim Nadim’s attack” that we were probably safe and far from chaos.
In Afghanistan, the family was part of the upper class in the capital, Kabul. The father was a major in the army and the mother was a teacher and women’s rights activist, but everything changed when the Taliban seized power in the 1990s. One night, the father did not come home. For eight months, the mother traveled across the country in search of her husband, but it was later revealed that he had been executed by the Taliban the day after his arrest.
A few years later, the family fled the homeland and Nadia Nadim believes that if the family had stayed back home, it would have been dangerous for her life.
– I don’t want to bow to anyone. As a woman, you cannot have this attitude in Afghanistan.
In her new homeland, football became a haven, and despite the fact that she had to play in a refugee camp in second-hand shoes of the wrong size, Nadim showed an early talent in this sport.
– I don’t have to think about what happened to my father and that the family was forced to flee. She said in the DR documentary I didn’t know what was going to happen, but just to be there without anything happening to me.
It took eight years before Nadim was granted Danish citizenship. In 2009 she became the first female national team player of foreign origin and is now included in 100 international matches. She is proud to wear the red and white national team jersey, and at the same time does not recognize Denmark, which welcomed the Nadim family in the early 2000s.
– The controversy and discourse in recent years about immigrants and the so-called Danish disturbs me. It hurts me. It is humanity, solidarity and tolerance that defines Danish for me. But it simply isn’t clear anymore. It’s sad, she said in an interview with Danish Radio in 2017.
Here and there I thought Denmark should learn from Germany and Sweden.
“Look at Zlatan”
– You can also see more players from different ethnic backgrounds in those national teams. This is partly because those societies are more inclusive. I like to accept other cultures and learn from them. And it must be said that Germany and Sweden are doing just that. Look at Zlatan Ibrahimovic. One of the best strikers in the world.
Ibrahimović in particular has been a great role model for Nadia Nadim throughout her career, and she has been described candidly and laid back as “Danish Zlatan”. Because she always went her own way – even off the football field.
Nadim began her medical education in 2009, and despite working abroad for many years at clubs such as Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, the 34-year-old graduated in early 2022.
A few months later, news broke that she had chosen to become the ambassador for the controversial Men’s World Cup in Qatar. When Elsinore’s Nadia Nadim defended her decision, she asserted that her story could make a real difference to the rights of girls and women in both Qatar and other countries in the region.
How should things go concretely?
– Being myself.