Afghan female Olympian urges England cricketers to boycott Champions Trophy game - Friba Rezayee says female athletes are treated as if they do not exist in Afghanistan.

But even Khalida Popal – the former captain of the country’s national football team and one of Afghanistan’s most vocal proponents for change – admits that she’s shocked at the extent that governing bodies such as the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Fifa have been complicit in marginalising women’s sport in the country.

The ECB is against forfeiting the game – if England do not play, Afghanistan get full points. Given how small the cricketing world is, the ICC can ill afford to hurt the game in Afghanistan. And then there is the all-important question of what India thinks.

England's men's players have the "power" to make their own stand and refuse to play Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy, says Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi.

A group of British lawmakers urged England to boycott their Champions Trophy match against Afghanistan next month, saying the country's cricket board (ECB) needed to take a stand against the Taliban's crackdown on women.

England will face Afghanistan in their second group game of the 2025 Champions Trophy, but more than 160 politicians have called for a boycott over the Taliban's outlawing of female sport

Seven MPs and peers from Northern Ireland back boycott due to the Taliban's oppression of women.

Richard Gould, the ECB's chief executive, has rejected calls from a group of British politicians for England to boycott their upcoming Champions Trophy clash with Afghanistan in February, saying that the Taliban regime's clampdown on women's rights is a matter that requires a "co-ordinated,