The Niger women's national football team is a FIFA-recognised team representing Niger in international association football matches. The team has played in two FIFA recognised matches, both of which were losses to Burkina Faso women's national football team in 2007. There is an under-20 women's national team who were supposed to participate in the 2002 African Women U-19 Championship but withdrew before playing a game. There are problems that impact the development of the women's game in Africa that effect Niger.
Background and development
Early development of the women's game at the time colonial powers brought football to the continent was limited as colonial powers in the region tended to take male concepts of patriarchy and women's participation in sport with them to local cultures that had similar concepts already embedded in them. The lack of later development of the national team on a wider international level symptomatic of all African teams is a result of several factors, including limited access to education, poverty amongst women in the wider society, and fundamental inequality present in the society that occasionally allows for female specific human rights abuses. When quality female football players are developed, they tend to leave for greater opportunities abroad. Continent wide, funding is also an issue, with most development money coming from FIFA, not the national football association. Future, success for women's football in Africa is dependent on improved facilities and access by women to these facilities. Attempting to commercialise the game and make it commercially viable is not the solution, as demonstrated by the current existence of many youth and women's football camps held throughout the continent. The Nigerien Football Federation was founded in 1967 and became a FIFA affiliate that same year. The FIFA trigramme is NIG. The national association does not have a full-time staffer dedicated to women, and there are no organisational or constitutional provisions specifically pertaining to the women's game. No organised women's football programme existed in the country despite football being one of the most popular sports in the country by 2009. For women though, basketball is the most popular participation sport. In 2006, there were zero registered female players and zero registered football clubs for women only. Rights to broadcast the 2011 Women's World Cup in the country were bought by the African Union of Broadcasting and Supersport International.
Team
In 1985, almost no country in the world had a women's national football team including Niger who officially had no women's national senior A team before 2006 and only had their first FIFA recognised international in 2007 when they competed at the Tournoi de Cinq Nations held in Ouagadougou. On 2 September, they lost to Burkina Faso 0-10. On 6 September, they lost to Burkina Faso 0-5. The country did not have a team competing in the 2010 African Women's Championships during the preliminary rounds or the 2011 All Africa Games. In June 2012, the team was not ranked in the world by FIFA. The country has never been ranked by FIFA. The country has had a Niger women's national under-19 team who have competed in the 2002 African Women U-19 Championship, the first edition of the competition to be held. They had a bye in the first round. In the quarterfinals, they were supposed to play Morocco but Niger withdrew from the competition.
