Football match called off because players wearing headscarves.

When Narbonne women football team enter the stadium, a referee to the match against Petit-Bard Montpellier, refused to officiate it. Why? Because the players of the Narbonne team were wearing muslim headscarves, said the other team.

It was a regional promotion match in the Languedoc-Roussillon league in the south of France. Now the league must decide whether to order the match to be replayed or to award a win to Narbonne. The two teams played a friendly match instead, with Narbonne winning 7-6.

Football’s world governing body, FIFA, banned players from wearing the headscarf in 2007, claiming it is unsafe. But football federations and even the United Nations have urged FIFA to lift the ban, maintaining that concerns about safety are baseless and that it discriminates against Muslim players, particularly when no such restrictions apply in other sports.

[Source: Express Herald Tribune]

Iran’s women’s soccer team was banned from this summer’s 2012 Olympic Games in London after players appeared with headscarves before a match against Jordan last year. Later, Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, who is also vice president of FIFA, started pushing to lift the ban.

Recently, FIFA has decided to change its stance. Muslim female soccer players are celebrating a decision by the International Football Association Board to allow them to test specially designed head coverings for four months. The new headscarves will be fastened with Velcro rather than pins.

[Source: Huff Post]