Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, around 500,000 people have died and, as the United Nations reported in 2024, 14 million have been displaced, with almost half of them heading overseas.
Among them is Syria’s first female football coach, Maha Janoud, who is currently at the academy of Breidablik, one of Iceland’s leading clubs. Like many of her compatriots, she was happy to see the regime of longtime strongman Bashar Assad fall in December — even if the country’s future remains uncertain.
“It is deeply painful — my family haven’t been together for 12 years,” Janoud told DW.
“I hope we can reunite soon and that countries will allow refugees to visit Syria. Every Syrian has the right to visit their home, or what remains of it, or the ruins of their memories.”

A life’s passion

For Janoud, those memories of life in her homeland are many. At the turn of the century, the then-teenager was just starting out as a player. While she did have some success playing for her country, like a third-place finish at the 2005 West Asian Championship, she says this was despite, not because of, the Syrian Football Association (SFA).
“There was no significant support or even a league,” she said. “There was only a small group of players who were passionate about playing football. The federation used us to participate in international tournaments without providing any financial support or developing a strategy or league for football.”
For Janoud — who took coaching courses during a playing career that ended in 2011 — this was an early taste of what was to become a difficult relationship with the SFA. She said the organization was controlled by the Assad regime, which packed it with loyal officials who ran it as their personal fiefdoms for financial and other benefits.

Becoming a coach

In 2018 the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) mandated that all member associations establish technical departments for women’s football. As the only woman in Syria with the requisite coaching licenses and experience, Janoud was hired as a coach — a job she said was made impossible by the SFA.
“They would take the salary allocated to me by the AFC and force me to sign as though I had received it, even though I had not,” she said.
At the same time, she was an assistant coach of Damascus men’s club Al-Muhafaza, where she says the government used her for propaganda purposes — as a symbol of the empowerment of women in the country.
“I was talked about worldwide as the first female coach in the Middle East to coach a men’s team, yet, I did not receive a word of thanks from the officials in Syria, nor any moral or financial recognition,” she said.
DW received no response from the SFA when it reached out to the federation for comment. However, in what appeared to be a move to distance itself from the former regime, it immediately changed its logo and shirt colors following Assad’s departure, while releasing a statement hailing a move away from “nepotism, favoritism and corruption.”

Watching from overseas

By 2020, Janoud had had enough, so she left Syria to work for the AFC’s Women’s Council and with Oman’s women’s team before heading to Iceland in 2023.
There, the now-39-year-old has been watching events unfold at home. Ahmad Al-Sharaa, a Syrian opposition military commander, was named the country’s transitional president on January 29 and attempts to form a government of national unity are ongoing.
“Syria is now going through the labor pains of a new birth, and this suffering is necessary,” Janoud said.
“I hope the new ‘child’ will be healthy. My joy at the end of the tyranny that weighed on our necks is indescribable, but I hope we don’t move from one fire to another.”
That is the concern of millions in a country exhausted by more than 13 years of war.
“I’m still waiting to see the vision for governing the country, and the new constitution because these are the foundations upon which Syria’s and its people’s future will be built,” she said.
Whatever happens in the future, Janoud believes there has to be some reckoning for those who worked at the heart of the old regime.
“The entire population worked within Assad’s institutions, but I am specifically referring to the corrupt individuals who thrived on the blood of martyrs, the sweat of farmers and workers, and through the trafficking of women’s bodies and human organs. They must be held accountable.”

Furthering the women’s game

Despite the war, the men’s national team remained competitive in Asia, coming close to qualification for the 2018 World Cup. Now, there is optimism that if the situation settles down over the coming months and years, the men can become a real force.
The future of women’s football, however, is less clear. In interviews, al-Sharaa has said that women’s education will continue and has dismissed concerns that Syria will go the way of Afghanistan’s Taliban where women are, among other things, not permitted to participate in sports.

Janoud is withholding judgment.

“If the new governing system and constitution allow women to participate then it could alter the country’s trajectory entirely. We must wait to see if women’s sports are allowed to continue with a dedicated budget. Nothing happens through dreams alone; reality will determine this,” she said.
The dream is that women’s football will move forward and as the country’s most experienced female football figure, Janoud could have a significant role to play.
“If Syria becomes safe, is governed by a fair constitution free from racism and discrimination, and guarantees a dignified life for its citizens, I must return.”