Tuesday, June 7, 2011
The Intersection of Sports and Religious Liberty
It isn't often that one sees these two fields together, but this story is about FIFA's ban of the niqab (the head-scarf...presumably the full length hijab is a no-go too) for female soccer players. Apparently the ban went into effect in 2007, and Iran's national team was recently disqualified in an Olympic qualifying match for their refusal to comply with it. The story is light on details about the grounds for the original ban, but it seems that there were safety concerns specifically related to the neck (the ban also prohibits "neck warmers"). I can understand how it might well present a safety concern for soccer players on either side to be dealing with a head scarf during play (it seems like a choking hazard and probably there are other dangers to the neck), but if anyone knows something more about the basis of the ban, please comment.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is quoted as calling the FIFA authorities "dictators" for their refusal to accommodate Iran's players.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/06/the-intersection-of-sports-and-religious-liberty.html
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the
comment feed
for this post.
I thought the ban was largely motivated by aesthetics or general disdain for wussy, non-European players wearing neckwarmers. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9415721.stm
Not sure that those concerns would transfer to niqabs...other than the general anti-foreigner, "soccer is supposed to be played this way" sentiment. Obviously, that's quite concerning, and I it nicely highlights the power held by 'licensing' or analogous entities.