When Zohib Islam Amiri came back to play in Afghanistan in January for the first time since 2010, he was hoping to make a difference. “I wanted to try to give some of the young Afghan kids some inspiration,” he says. “But as soon as I got there it was clear that things were even worse.”
Amiri, who made his international debut as a 15-year-old in 2005 before serving as captain for more than a decade, became the first Afghanistan player to move overseas when he joined Mumbai in 2011. The defender’s return to play for Abu Muslim in the Afghanistan Champions League – a competition set up in 2021 when the Taliban regained power – was never intended to be the end of his career. But having seen his side crowned champions after a controversial 8-0 victory amid allegations of match-fixing, Amiri decided enough was enough.
