There have been widespread fears over what the Taliban's return to power will mean for women's sport in Afghanistan ©Getty Images

FIFA has worked with the Qatari Government to evacuate "almost 100 members of the football family from Afghanistan, including female players," it has claimed.

Football's international governing body confirmed the group had received "safe passage" on a charter flight from the Afghan capital Kabul to the Qatari capital Doha.

It claimed the individuals on the flight were "deemed to have been at the highest risk."

FIFA said it had been working with the Government of Qatar since August, and that the latest development came "following complex negotiations."

It said it hopes to evacuate "further members of the sporting family in the future."

Thousands of people based in Afghanistan have attempted to leave the country since the Taliban returned to power following the withdrawal of American troops.

The Islamist group believes in Sharia law and vigorously restricts the freedoms of women, imposing severe restrictions during its rule from 1996 to 2001 before it was removed in a United States-led operation.

There have been widespread concerns over what its return to power will mean for women's rights and women's sport, which it views as un-Islamic.

FIFA said it had worked with the Government of Qatar to ensure the
FIFA said it had worked with the Government of Qatar to ensure the "safe passage" of the footballers and their families on a flight from Kabul to Doha ©Getty Images

The Taliban claimed on its return to power it would respect women’s rights "within the framework of Islam," but cultural official Ahmadullah Wasiq told Australian broadcaster SBS last month he expected women would be banned from sports "where their face and body will not be covered."

"Islam and the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed," he added.

Cricket Australia has threatened to cancel its scheduled historic Test match against Afghanistan at the end of November "if recent media reports that women's cricket will not be supported in Afghanistan are substantiated."

September also saw more than 100 of Afghanistan's women's junior football team and their families flee to Pakistan, while "a large number of women footballers and athletes from Afghanistan" were evacuated by the Australian Government in August as concerns grew over their safety.

Three table tennis players from Afghanistan - Mustafa Bakhtiyari, Mohammad Hossein and Behrooz Daneshmand - were granted wildcards for the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Doha in Qatar last month.

However, the country's Chef de Mission for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Arian Sadiqi expressed his disappointment that more had not been done by international sports bodies to help evacuate athletes from Afghanistan, "especially the APC [Asian Paralympic Committee], IPC [International Paralympic Committee] and IOC [International Olympic Committee] and rest of the sports organisations."