FURTHER UPDATE: In response to FIFA, the QSF has reversed its ban on turbans, saying that it was merely seeking clarification. OK, we'll overlook Brigitte Frot's prevarication on this point. We await the wisdom of the Right Honourable xenophobe, the Premier of Québec, Pauline Marois.
UPDATE: As antirealist points out in comments below, FIFA has now explicitly ruled that turbans are fine in Canadian soccer. So Brigitte Frot will have to let Sikhs out of their backyards to play.
Yesterday I posted about the Québec ban on turbans in soccer, which has provoked outrage both in Québec and in the rest of Canada.
In the meanwhile, Brigitte Frot, President of the Québec Soccer Federation, has said, by the way, that Sikhs who want to play soccer can do so in their own backyards. Frot said her group was simply taking its cues from FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. FIFA rules do not explicitly state a position on such headwear — which is neither banned, nor allowed. Frot said that if people want to change the policy they should take it up with FIFA.
FIFA doesn't explicitly allow turbans, but it does not exclude them either. Similarly, it passes over gloves in silence, which are often used in cold weather. I wondered who in the world banned Sikh soccer. (Not Canada, of course, and not India either.) I immediately found this:
Football authorities in Dublin are investigating allegations that a referee tried to force a Sikh boy to take off his turban during a schoolboy match.
And in Australia, this:
Now, the Canadian Soccer Association has disallowed any team in the rest of Canada to play in Québec. 20 Ontario teams have withdrawn from a tournament in Montreal.
On another front, the United Nations Human Rights Commission ruled that France had violated the rights of Ranjit Singh by requiring that he remove his turban for a identity card photograph.
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