World Soccer: Iranian women’s team forfeits 2012 qualifier over head scarves

The Iranian women's soccer team was in tears after being forced to forfeit a 2012 London Olympics qualifying match this past weekend because it showed up to play in hijabs. FIFA banned the Islamic head scarf in 2007, saying that it could cause choking injuries -- the same reason it gave for recently banning snoods (neck warmers). FIFA also has strict rules against any religious statements in team uniforms.
Since Iran refused to comply with these rules and didn't use the specially designed caps that its 2010 Youth Olympics team wore, Friday's match was abandoned by officials and a 3-0 win was awarded to Jordan as a result. The Football Federation of Iran said it will complain to FIFA about the ruling, but FIFA says assurances were made beforehand so that this situation would've been avoided.
"Despite initial assurances that the Iranian delegation understood this, the players came out wearing the hijab, and the head and neck totally covered, which was an infringement of the laws of the game," FIFA said in a statement. [...]
Jordan team officials also objected to the hijab rule before the game, but prepared to play by declining to select women who objected on religious grounds.
"The Iranian team and three Jordanian players were also banned from playing because they wore the traditional head cover," Rana Husseini, head of Jordan's women's football committee, told The Associated Press.
"The problem is that the head cover assigned and approved by FIFA for women players to wear does not suit them as it reveals part of the neck and this is not allowed and it is not acceptable," she said.
Iran also forfeited a second group match against Vietnam on Sunday, seriously damaging its chances of advancing to the London Olympics. It seems unlikely that its federation's complaints will help its case, though, since these rules are not new and compromises have been made in the past. It's just a shame these women were put in the middle of this debate between Iran's federation and FIFA and set up for disappointment.

Iran's women's soccer team may be sitting out the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore next month because of a dispute over their Islamic uniforms. The young athletes, all under 15, are at the center of a struggle over how to follow Iran's dress code and still compete in the international arena.

Last week the government unveiled the team's new outfits, a modest ensemble of pants, long sleeves, and high knee socks, with a cap that covers their hair. The outfits are designed in red, white and green to match the Iranian flag.

The top female official of Iran's physical education department was apparently offended by the uniforms, saying they were "inappropriate" and that the team would not compete in them. The uniforms had been a compromise; in 2007 FIFA, the organizing body of world soccer, had banned the old uniform because it included the hejab, or Islamic head scarf. The hejab violated FIFA safety regulations and a rule barring religious or political symbols on the field, Reuters reports.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian women have been required to cover their heads and bodies in public. Fatima Adbollahian, an Iranian filmmaker who made a documentary about the country's female athletes, says women were kept out of athletic competition in the 1980s. As the playing field opened up to women in the 1990s, they joined sports that could accommodate the hejab, like archery and martial arts.

Within those limits, they excelled; in 2008 ABC News profiled Iran's first woman to earn a spot in the Olympics, Taekwondo champion Sara Khoshjamal.

"If there's one thing I love to do...it's sport," said Sonya Shahamati of the Iranian Baseball League. Baseball is a relatively new arrival in the Islamic Republic, and women have taken to running bases in baggy shirts and head scarves.

"On one hand, maybe it's difficult," she told ABC News in 2007, wearing a hejab under her baseball cap. "But in Iran we have to, and we don't have any problem."

But even in the sports they can play in public, Abdollahian, the filmmaker, says that women athletes face stiff challenges.

Iran's Women Athletes Fight for Equality

"They have to still fight for equality -- funding, infrastructure for them is not the same as for male athletes. And of course they also have to deal with certain social tension," she told ABC News.

"The classic role of women in Iran is still the wife, the daughter, the mother. To be a professional athlete in Iran means to pay a much higher price…that takes a lot more energy than it does for male professional athletes."

Still, she says, the past ten years have given women much more opportunity in sports. As for the controversy over women's soccer uniforms, she attributes it to a conservative government growing increasingly strict about Islamic dress.

"Sports have become a very, very important tool of [women's] self-expression…getting rid of extra energy they might not be able to lose or express when they are only bound to work and the private household," she said.

"This is something the government would not be allowed to take from them anymore. It's amazing…it's irreversible."

Iran president says headscarf ban in soccer imposed by 'dictators' FIFA

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described FIFA as "colonialists" on Tuesday for a headscarf ban in football that affect its women's team.
Mustafa Musleh Zadeh, Iran's ambassador to Jordan, went further by saying the ban was "inhumane" and "politically motivated."
The remarks by Ahmadinejad were the highest since the team forfeited a 2012 Olympic qualifier against Jordan last Friday because it wouldn't play without the hijabs.
"These are the dictators and colonialists who want to impose their lifestyle on others," Ahmadinejad said in a seasonal news conference.
The Iran president said he'd assigned Ali Saeedlu, the head of Iran's physical education, to pursue the case.
"We will deal with those who carried out this ugly job," said Ahmadinejad. "We follow definite rights of our girls."
Zadeh said Iran would complain to the Asian Football Federation.
FIFA said the ban on the Islamic scarf covering a women's neck was for safety reasons.
The ambassador called FIFA's ban "extremism," similar to Afghanistan's Taliban restrictions on women in sports.
FIFA banned the hijab in 2007 and has extended the safety rule to include neck warmers.
At the 2010 Youth Olympics, Iran's girls protected their modesty by covering their hair with specially designed caps.

FIFA rejects complaint over Islamic scarf ban

GENEVA - Iran's women's team was correctly prevented from playing a 2012 Olympics qualifier wearing Islamic head scarves, FIFA said Monday.

Iranian officials were "informed thoroughly" before Friday's match against Jordan that the hijab scarf is banned for safety reasons, soccer's governing body said.

"Despite initial assurances that the Iranian delegation understood this, the players came out wearing the hijab, and the head and neck totally covered, which was an infringement of the laws of the game," FIFA said in a statement.

FIFA banned the hijab in 2007 and this year extended the safety rule to include neck warmers, which were also judged a threat to cause a choking injury. Soccer's rules also prohibit religious statements in team uniforms.

Iran's soccer association has said it will complain about the FIFA delegate from Bahrain who ordered the match abandoned, and the decision to award Jordan a 3-0 victory.

"I will file a complaint to FIFA against the individual in charge of holding the match," Ali Kaffashian, the Iranian Football Federation president, said Saturday in comments reported by the Fars news agency.

Jordan team officials also objected to the hijab rule before the game, but prepared to play by declining to select women who objected on religious grounds.

"The Iranian team and three Jordanian players were also banned from playing because they wore the traditional head cover," Rana Husseini, head of Jordan's women's soccer committee, told The Associated Press.

"The problem is that the head cover assigned and approved by FIFA for women players to wear does not suit them as it reveals part of the neck and this is not allowed and it is not acceptable," she said.

FIFA addressed the problem at the 2010 Youth Olympics when Iran's girls protected their modesty by covering their hair with specially designed caps.

Husseini said Jordan's Prince Ali, who joined FIFA's executive committee last week, would seek talks to resolve the issue.

Iran also forfeited its match against Vietnam on Sunday as part of a round-robin group playing in Amman, Jordan, which also includes Thailand and Uzbekistan.

The winner enters a final group with Asia's five highest-ranked teams to decide which two countries advance to the London Games

British PM says FIFA at ‘all-time low’

LONDON - British Prime Minister David Cameron says FIFA's reputation is at an "all-time low" and needs to be more accountable as it tackles the worst crisis in its 107-year history.
Cameron told the House of Commons on Wednesday that it was "something of a farce" that Sepp Blatter was re-elected as president unopposed last week.
Blatter's only challenger, Mohamed bin Hammam, was suspended three days before the election along with fellow FIFA executive committee member Jack Warner on campaign bribery charges.
Cameron says "FIFA's reputation is now at an all-time low and obviously the election with just one candidate was something of a farce."
Cameron wants world football's governing body to "become more transparent and more accountable."