Stop the Meanness

Iran’s women’s soccer team won’t be playing in the 2012 Olympics next year because they refused to bow to Western authority and give up their religion.

Earlier this month, the Iranian women’s team was disqualified just before a crucial qualifying match with Jordan. Had they won the match, the team would have been set to play in the Olympics in London next summer.

But officials of FIFA – the Swiss-based Federation Internationale de Football Association – decided just before kickoff that the Iranian team could not play while wearing the headscarves demanded by their Islamic religion.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, all women are required by the state’s interpretation of Shiite Islamic tenets to cover their hair, neck, arms and legs. You can imagine how many Iranian female swimmers, tennis players or gymnasts this would allow to compete.

Zero.

So playing soccer – known internationally as football – is one of the few opportunities these young women have to excel athletically while still observing their very strict religious tenets.

The last-minute FIFA ruling left the Iranian women’s soccer team crying inconsolably on the field – just one more insult to women already suffering daily in an intensely paternalistic society.

OK, so maybe this religious stuff is over the top to us Westerners. And maybe many Westerners have a barely concealed dislike of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its politics.

But to take it out on these poor women is just plain mean.

The FIFA can blather all day long about how allowing these soccer players to wear headscarves could potentially be injurious to them and it’s all for their benefit, yada yada, but the real underlying message here seems to be “do it the Western way or you’re not going to do it.”

“This ruling means that women soccer in Iran is over,´ said Shahrzad Mozafar, the team’s former head coach, in a Washington Post story, adding that FIFA’s ruling will mean the Iranian government will no longer send them abroad to compete.

And how ironic that FIFA President Joseph Blatter just last March declared FIFA’s support for the 100th anniversary of “International Women’s Day.”

“Today, thanks to our consistent and tailor-made development work all around the world, girls and women can now play football in countries and cultures throughout the world,” Blatter said. “FIFA invests in the development of women’s football and remains committed to creating opportunities for female players, coaches, referees and officials to become actively involved.”

Yeah, right. And how ironic – again — that 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the first FIFA Women’s World Cup, a fact Blatter triumphantly noted in his speech.

It seems FIFA is clueless when it comes to the world as it really is. It would be ever so nice if everyone was like the Swiss and the West, but they’re not.

How about a little tolerance and compassion for those who ARE truly diverse but who still love the game of soccer/football and want to be part of the fun and excitement of world competition?

Hey FIFA: Tear down the walls. Don’t build them higher.

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