Hijab ban 'turning women off football'

Source: World News Australia

Muslim women are being driven away from football by FIFA's ban of the hijab, with more likely to follow if rulemakers fail to reverse the decision at a meeting next month, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan told Reuters. 

While physical Olympic sports such as rugby and taekwondo allow Muslim women to wear the headscarf in competition, football, the world's most popular sport, remains against its use, citing safety concerns. 

Last year the Iranian women's football team were prevented from playing their 2012 Olympic second round qualifying match against Jordan because they refused to remove their hijabs before kick-off.

Iran had topped their group in the first round of Olympic qualifiers after going undefeated, however the Asian nation were given 3-0 defeats in their four second round matches because of their failure to comply with the rules, their dreams of competing in London abruptly ended.

"It is very important that everybody has the chance to play the sport that they love and obviously the laws of the games have to be amended to allow that," Prince Ali, a FIFA vice-president, told Reuters in an interview in Singapore.

"I think that football, being the most popular sport in the world, accessible to all, we should take the lead on this issue and therefore that is what we are trying to pursue and hopefully we will get a pass from IFAB."

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