and that s why while in 2010, you ll see there was a 20 year low, those numbers picked up again as people started fleeing syria. and because of that fact, because of the fact these numbers are affected by global conflicts, it isn t surprising to see that in 2022, a large proportion of these applications are from people in afghanistan, iran, iraq, syria. now, there are two surprising things here, and that s that albania makes up the highest number, even though they re classified as a safe country by the uk home office and by the uk government. but that s why they put into place so many measures to make those figures go down this year, which they have. ukraine is also not listed here and that s because they benefit from a special visa scheme, which is why the home office didn t put them in this chart. but how do we compare to other countries? is this a uk problem? not according to the figures. in 2022, the uk received the fifth highest number of asylum applications. germany was up top wi
35 afghan female footballers and theirfamilies to britain. during a blaze of publicity, the home office granted visas for 130 people. but bbc newsnight has been told that around half of the women on the rescue flight were not playing at the level it was claimed and that the home office didn t do any checks around their credentials as sportswomen. there is a resentment among genuine players now living under taliban rule in afghanistan who say they live in fear of persecution. i spoke to zara. we ve changed her name, and her words are voiced by an actor to protect her identity. it s like a living hell. itjust makes me feel very neglected and very sad because we are the real players and not some of those that got evacuated. the bbc has obtained the final list of the evacuated footballers and their families submitted to the british authorities.
many of those on it were described as being part of the herat youth team in western afghanistan. a genuine player and the former captain of the herat team was on the uk flight with some of her team mates. she met some of the other women in pakistan before they flew to the uk. she says they mentioned playing under najibullah noroozi, who was her coach and who told us separately that there were names on the list who hadn t played for his team. they are saying our coach, we are playing the herat federation. if asked question more, they are didn t know about about the football. so do you think they were lying about being footballers? yes. this person was working for a charity involved in the evacuation. she says that a former member of the afghan women s national team and prominent campaigner, provided the names and details for those on the list, vouching for them as genuine footballers. the list that was prepared