{"id":757128,"date":"2026-06-24T11:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/757128\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:59:17","slug":"the-blind-football-team-opening-up-the-world-for-women-in-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/757128\/","title":{"rendered":"The blind football team opening up the world for women in Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

As World Cup fever grips the country, Chilangas FC is helping visually impaired women build confidence, friendship and sporting ambition in a game that has too often left them on the sidelines<\/p>\n

Swaying her white cane from side to side, Pau, 31, steps off a bus into the noise of Mexico City. Cars surge past, horns blare and rain begins to fall, but the visually impaired mother keeps moving, her six-year-old son Noel holding tightly to her hand.<\/p>\n

Several times a week, she makes the two-hour journey across one of the world\u2019s largest cities to train with Chilangas FC, a women\u2019s blind football team that she says has changed her life.<\/p>\n

For Pau and her teammates, the commute is more than worth it. Chilangas FC, one of only six women\u2019s blind football teams in Mexico, has become a source of friendship, confidence and independence in a country where many visually impaired women still face pressure to remain at home under the care of relatives.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFootball has changed how I see myself as a blind woman,\u201d Pau says. \u201cBringing my son with me and knowing I\u2019m setting an example for him fills my heart. I\u2019m showing him that there are no limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 2022 by coach Wendy del R\u00edo, Chilangas FC was created to expand opportunities for visually impaired women in a sport that has long been dominated by men. As blind football has grown in Mexico through men\u2019s leagues, tournaments and national team programmes, women have begun pushing for spaces of their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started, there were very few opportunities for blind women,\u201d says del R\u00edo. \u201cMany arrived thinking football wasn\u2019t for them because that\u2019s what they had been told their whole lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Training gave the players something many had been missing beyond sport: regular contact with other visually impaired women, and a place where the daily business of navigating the city, work, family and other people\u2019s assumptions did not need to be explained.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019ve become friends, teammates and role models,\u201d del R\u00edo says. \u201cWatching their confidence grow has been one of the most rewarding parts of this project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before joining Chilangas FC, much of Pau\u2019s world revolved around work, childcare and getting around Mexico City with a visual impairment. Football has since opened up her life far beyond those routines.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, I felt very alone,\u201d she says. \u201cNow I have teammates who support me, who understand me and who encourage me to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noel often comes with her to training and proudly tells classmates that his mother plays football.<\/p>\n

Watching their confidence grow has been one of the most rewarding parts of this project<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s happy,\u201d Pau says. \u201cHe tells his teachers and our family that his mum plays football. He says he wants to play sports too. It\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blind football has existed in Mexico for more than two decades, but opportunities for women have long been limited. During matches, all outfield players wear blackout eye coverings so that different levels of vision are equalised. They play with a rattling ball and rely on voice, trust and spatial memory, guided by teammates, coaches and goal guides stationed around the pitch.<\/p>\n

The game is played five-a-side, with four visually impaired outfield players and a sighted goalkeeper. The goalkeeper directs the defence, a coach outside the pitch guides the midfield, and a goal guide behind the opposition net helps attackers line up their shots.<\/p>\n

Mexico is co-hosting the World Cup with the US and Canada, and football is everywhere: on television screens, in bars, on shirts, in schoolyards and across the streets Pau crosses to reach training. For Chilangas FC, that national obsession has sharpened a simple question: who gets to be part of the game?<\/p>\n

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Mexico\u2019s women\u2019s blind footballers are now preparing for another milestone, with players hoping to compete in the Copa Am\u00e9rica in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, this September. Mexico is trying to become the fourth country in the world, after Brazil, Argentina and Canada, to form a women\u2019s blind football national team.<\/p>\n

According to Mexico\u2019s National Institute of Statistics and Geography, around 16 million people in the country live with some form of visual impairment, including more than half a million who are fully blind. Yet women\u2019s blind football remains tiny, with only six teams nationwide and about 45 women playing at an organised level.<\/p>\n

To get to Brazil, the team needs to raise 1m pesos, roughly \u00a340,000, to cover flights, accommodation, uniforms, training and food. With no institutional funding in place, a crowdfunding campaign launched by the foundation Fondo Semillas, F\u00fatbol Ciego: Ellas juegan, M\u00e9xico dice \u00a1voy!, has become its financial lifeline.<\/p>\n

The sense of belonging Pau describes is shared by many of her teammates. Alexandra, 20, a striker for Chilangas FC, studies at a residential centre for people with visual impairments on the outskirts of Mexico City while pursuing her football ambitions.<\/p>\n

Being here feels like having a family. You feel a beautiful responsibility to stay and keep going<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, football is a huge dream for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to keep growing as a player. I\u2019m giving everything to training, to strategy, to being a good teammate. Being here feels like having a family. You feel a beautiful responsibility to stay and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stories like Pau\u2019s and Alexandra\u2019s highlight the barriers many visually impaired women continue to face, says Efra\u00edn Mora Garc\u00eda, president of the Mexican Federation of Sports for the Blind and Visually Impaired.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the barriers are created by us, or by the family itself,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are physical barriers and social barriers, but what these women really need is an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those barriers do not end at the edge of the pitch. Mexico City, del R\u00edo says, \u201cisn\u2019t adapted for the visually impaired to get about\u201d, and women travelling alone face additional safety risks. Many players live on the outskirts, making journeys to training long and expensive, while those who need to work weekends can find sport almost impossible to fit in.<\/p>\n

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\n Chilangas FC striker Alexandra Rami\u0301rez, 20, attempts to wrestle free from an opposition defender during the Mexican Open Blind Football Tournament\n <\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying sport is still a privilege,\u201d del R\u00edo says. \u201cYou have to have the time, you have to have the resources, and you have to stop doing other activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without institutional funding, Chilangas FC trains on a public court that it shares with whoever turns up. Del R\u00edo has spent months negotiating with Mexico City\u2019s Women\u2019s Secretariat for a dedicated pitch suitable for the sport, while equipment, coaching staff and travel still depend on donations and goodwill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need is simple: a court designed for our sport, coaches who are paid for their time, and the federation and government to recognise this as a real sport, not a charity project,\u201d she says. \u201cThe World Cup is in Mexico, and everyone is talking about football. We just want some of that conversation to include us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even persuading women to try the sport can mean taking on deep-rooted assumptions about disability, danger and who football is supposedly for.<\/p>\n

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\n Founded in 2022 by coach Wendy del R\u00edo, Chilangas FC was created to expand opportunities for visually impaired women in a sport that has long been dominated by men\n <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I ask the girls, and it\u2019s like, \u2018No, I\u2019ll get hit,\u2019 \u2018No, it\u2019s too rough,\u2019\u201d del R\u00edo says. \u201cBreaking away from those stereotypes (that it\u2019s a conventional, masculine sport) can also be a barrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the players have built, she says, goes far beyond a football club.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes a community that embraces you,\u201d del R\u00edo says. \u201cAnd that creates dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Pau, one of those dreams has little to do with trophies.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my biggest dreams is for my son to see me play an official match,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to come off the field and have him hug me and say, \u2018Congratulations, Mom.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Noel keeps making the journey with her across Mexico City, watching from the sidelines as his mother builds a life she once thought was beyond her reach.<\/p>\n

Photography by Mark Viales<\/p>\n

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Support Positive News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As World Cup fever grips the country, Chilangas FC is helping visually impaired women build confidence, friendship and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,17956,596,85],"class_list":["post-757128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blind","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}