uncanily, she is wearing a scarf almost identical to that of Surahs..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisjohnbeckett/2098568507/

(As a former University football (soccer) player, this topic is near and dear to my heart. Seeing as how many Muslim girls are not exactly encourage to participate in sports, it breaks my heart when a truly talented Muslim girl is barred from participating in her sport because of her choice to wear hijaab, especially when her doing so will cause no harm to the other players.)

Thanks for the morning laugh.

Lara, my point was that these regulators are known for being sloppy about players’ welfare and seek to control players’ behaviour far beyond the actual rules of the game, which is why Muslims should seek to be outside their control if they do things like this.

There is no rule in football, as far as I have ever heard, or any other sport, that dictates that players’ dress should be “religiously neutral”. They made that rule up themselves.

Southern Masala, that is a good point regarding the sub regulation and just reinforces my initial feeling- this is about visible muslim women more than anything else.

Rules and regulations for referees are kind of like judges for law courts- each judge or referee has their own style of enforcement and interpretation. I don’t know who in the chain lost the plot. (This is where I try to thread in Yusuf’s comment). I think there were several steps along the way where referees or officials could have stopped this hijab case, but none did (although she has coaches, players and at least some referees on her side) at a crucial time.

Allowing myself a tangent of my own, it also shows a particular European kind of “integration” and “inclusiveness” for Muslim women- e.g. you can’t participate in society unless you play by our rules and if you are even the slightest bit different, we’ll make a rule freezing you out.

Yusuf, I know this was not your intention, but when someone is talking about Topic A and someone else says, “Yes, that’s bad but topic B is worse”, it can seem rather dismissive and it also derails the conversation.

You may find this link interesting: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

Just seems to me like another way to punish Muslim women for choosing to practice their beliefs.

It seems to have become a pattern for headscarves to become generally accepted in a game, then for some official somewhere to kick up a fuss, and eventually for the sports regulators to ban it. This has happened in Tae Kwon Do which used to be popular among Muslim girls, in football/soccer and probably other sports. Perhaps Muslims should be forming their own leagues and avoiding the regulators.

These regulators have done far worse – I read an entry on a blog by a former wheelchair tennis player who said that, while playing a match, an opponent went off for half an hour “to the bathroom” but actually spent the time sitting in front of the fan. This lady had to sit in the heat for all that time and wasn’t allowed to go into the shade. If you’ve got a spinal cord injury at her level, your body temperature doesn’t regulate like it should so if you get hot, you really do get hot.

When I made this point in the comments, she replied,

The USTA (United States Tennis Assoc.) officials were very spotty about knowing wheelchair tennis rules and/or caring about such things as what a [quadriplegic] needed. I noticed after the USTA started officiating that many of the quad players no longer came to the local tournaments, but I’m not sure if there was a connection there. I do know there were more accommodations provided informally by the players prior to USTA involvement and the level of ableism from some officials was nauseating at times.