Empowering Women, Breaking Records: All Female Soccer Teams Play FIFA Accredited Matches at Lowest, Highest Point on Earth

Two all-female soccer teams played the first-ever FIFA accredited match at 400 meters below sea level, next to Jordan’s Dead Sea, Thursday breaking their second world record in less than a year.

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This feat followed a similar record-breaking game played at 6,000 meters above sea level, the highest altitude a FIFA accredited match has ever been played at, in June 2017 at Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro.  

Both matches are the result of the efforts of Equal Playing Field, a grassroots, non-profit seeking to challenge gender inequality in sports and promote sports development and empowerment for girls and women around the world.

The match played Thursday was preceded by a 12-day trek through Jordan, during which current and retired international players visited the cities of Jerash, Wadi Musa, Wadi Rum and Amman to play exhibition games to bring football to different communities and to promote this month’s Women’s Asian Cup hosted by Jordan.

Maggie Murphy, co-founder of Equal Playing Field, told CNN “We want to help normalize sport for women and girls. We're hoping that by taking the sport to different parts of the country, those girls can just have fun and see if they like it and, who knows, maybe they'll go on to be stars of Jordan's national football team.”

During their Kilimanjaro feat, the team played with local Tanzanian women’s groups and launched football clinics in Tanzania and South Africa.

Players in the Equal Playing Fields team form more than 23 countries, including the United States, Pakistan, Spain, India, Syria, France, Venezuela, Palestine, Tanzania, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.