Despite the unprecedented success of Afghan football in 2013, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has reportedly allocated a menial budget for the Afghan Football Federation (AFF) in its draft budget for 2014.
The head of Parliament's Committee on Health, Sport, Youth, and Labor, Naqibullah Faeeq, said on Tuesday that the
entire normal budget for the AFF in 2014 would only be 700,000 USD, with no additional development budget.
Faeeq was critical of the budget draft, expressing concern that it would not be enough to sustain the national team program, let alone improve it.
"As we see in the budget, only 700,000 USD is allocated as normal budget to the footbal federation, which is not enough for one month for the football team, and additionally, it does not have a development budget," he said.
The budget news is likely to come as a kind of slap in the face for the AFF and the National Football Team, which won Afghanistan's first international football title at the 2013 South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Cup.
Despite President Hamid Karzai publicly ordering the Ministry of Finance to pay one million USD to the country's Football Federation as a reward for the year's success, several months have past without any evidence of such a transfer having ever been made.
The Afghan National Football Team was also awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award for the first time in history on Monday night in Zurich, Switzerland.
"The Afghan athletes receive the Fair Play Award, yet our government and Parliament treat them unfairly," Faeeq added.
The coach of the Afghan National Football Team, Mohammad Yousef Kargar, also criticized what he saw a government neglect.
Members of the National Team and other Afghan athletes have frequently complained about the lack of possibilities and facilities made available for them in Afghanistan.
"The budget allocated to us is not enough, we ask government to give us enough money." an Afghan footballer named Haroon said.
Officials from the Ministry of Finance were unavailable for comment on the subject.
Despite the progress that was made in Afghan football in 2013, the reality remains that Afghanistan is a country embattled in war. As the Kabul government becomes increasingly independent, for better or worse, as foreign troops withdraw, the belt-tightening is unlikely to end with athletics.