The Kosovo women's national football team (Albanian: Kombëtarja e futbollit të femrave të Kosovës; Serbian: Женска фудбалска репрезентација Косова, romanized: Ženska fudbalska reprezentacija Kosova) represents Kosovo in international women's football and is controlled by the Football Federation of Kosovo.
History
Permitting by FIFA to play friendlies
On 6 February 2013, FIFA gave Kosovo the permission to play international friendly games against other member associations.[2] On 13 January 2014, there was a change of this permit that forbade Kosovo to play against the national teams of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Club teams were also allowed to play friendlies and this happened after a FIFA Emergency Committee meeting. However, it was stipulated that clubs and representative teams of the Football Federation of Kosovo may not display national symbols as flags, emblems, etc. or play national anthems. The go-ahead was given after meetings between the Football Association of Serbia and Sepp Blatter.
In September 2015 at an UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Malta was approved the request from the federation to the admission in UEFA to the next Ordinary Congress to be held in Budapest.[3] On 3 May 2016, at the Ordinary Congress. Kosovo were accepted into UEFA after members voted 28–24 in favor of Kosovo.[4][5] Ten days later, Kosovo was accepted in FIFA during their 66th congress in Mexico with 141 votes in favour and 23 against.[6]
After failing to qualify for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, Kosovo participated in the UEFA Women's Euro 2021 qualifying, together with Estonia, Russia, Slovenia, Turkey and 2019 World Cup runners-up finisher Netherlands,[8] the Kosovars created their first big surprise, defeating Turkey in a 2–0 home win, which was also the team's first-ever competitive win,[9] victory which increased the enthusiasm which unfortunately did not last long and after the positive results began to experience a decline which resulted in disqualification.
Team image
Nicknames
The Kosovo women's national football team has been known or nicknamed as the "Dardanet (Dardanets)".
Kits and crest
The Kosovan women's national football team wears blue jersey at home matches, white jersey at away matches, black jersey at neutral matches, but mostly this jersey is used as an alternative jersey, following the tradition of the Kosovo men's team. On 5 October 2016, Kosovo signed with Spanish sportswear company Kelme to a four-year contract and was the first official kit suppliers of Kosovo after membership in UEFA and FIFA.[10] On 23 February 2022, Kosovo signed with Italian sportswear company Erreà to a three-year contract for it to the kit suppliers of Kosovo.[11]
On 19 January 2017, in Nyon, it was decided that Kosovo should be part in Group 2 of the 2019 FIFA World Cup qualification, together with Albania, Greece and Malta.[7] On 6 April 2017, Kosovo made their debut on 2019 FIFA World Cup qualifications with a 3–2 away defeat against Albania.[12]
On 21 February 2019, in Nyon, it was decided that Kosovo should be part in Group A of the UEFA Euro 2021 qualifying, together with Estonia, Russia, Slovenia, Turkey and 2019 World Cup runners-up finisher Netherlands.[8] On 30 August 2019, Kosovo made their debut on UEFA European Championship qualifying with a 2–0 home win against Turkey, which was also the team's first-ever competitive win.[9]
Kosovo has so far participated in four editions of the Turkish Women's Cup, the first time was in the 2017 edition, when Kosovo lost in all three matches of this tournament against Poland (0–5), which was also her first international match as a FIFA member, against Romania (0–3) and against the host Turkey (2–4). A year later, Kosovo again participated in the 2018 edition, when they lost against France (0–6), Ukraine (0–2), draw against Kazakhstan (1–1) and win against Northern Ireland (1–0).
^ abThere may be more matches or goals because some match data is missing.
^Caps and goals of the friendly matches against Bulgaria (25 and 28 February 2019, 10 April 2023), North Macedonia (8 April 2019, 24 and 27 June 2022), Luxembourg (9 November 2019) and India (27 February 2024) are missing.
^From Euro 2025 onwards a new qualifying format was introduced, linked to the Women's Nations League where teams are divided into leagues with promotion/relegation between the leagues at the end of each cycle.
