After an 11-year-old girl was ejected from a [tag]soccer[/tag] game for wearing a hijab, 6 teams have walked out of a youth tournament in Québec.

Asmahan Mansour of the Napean Hotspurs Selects was getting set to get on the field as a subsitute player when she was asked by the referee, a Muslim man himself, to remove her [tag]hijab[/tag] before playing. According to the tournament organizers’ rules, “the wearing of the Islamic veil or any other [tag]religious[/tag] item is not permitted,” although they are claiming that it’s for safety reasons to prevent the head scarf from choking children.

Parents are outraged by this incident because Mansour had been playing soccer at other games beforehand and had never faced a similar situation. Some claim it was an act of racism toward [tag]Muslim[/tag] women. At this time, 6 teams have withdrawn from the tournament. The Selects have said they won’t return to the tournament until the rules change.

In relation, FIFA’s international rules state that players cannot be wearing any equipment that can be dangerous to other players, but there are no specific rules regarding hijabs.

More information: LINK.

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 4:24 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.