Charest applauds hijab call
'Ref applied the rules'. Barring of Muslim from soccer match kicks off nationwide controversy


JAN RAVENSBERGEN, ANDY RIGA and KEVIN DOUGHERTY of the, The Gazette
Published: Tuesday, February 27, 2007

A campaigning Premier Jean Charest and rival Mario Dumont yesterday both endorsed a referee's order that an 11-year-old Muslim girl remove her hijab or be barred from participating in a major soccer tournament in Laval.

In protest, Asmahan (Azzy) Mansour's team, the Nepean Hotspurs Selects, forfeited a Sunday morning match, pulled out of the event and triggered a wave of controversy across the country.

The Quebec Soccer Federation stuck to its long-standing ban prohibiting players from wearing the female Islamic head covering during matches, citing safety concerns.

Until Sunday, hijabs hadn't created any on-field problems, safety or otherwise, in the rest of Canada, said Joe Guest, Canada's chief soccer referee.

"This is the first time it's ever come across my desk as being controversial" since he assumed his post in May, he said.

In Britain, "we've had players, Sikhs and Indians, who've removed their turban and placed a cap over their heads to keep with the requirements of keeping their heads covered, and continued to play soccer. I'm sure in the Middle East there must be girls playing soccer in exactly the same way.

Headgear is permitted under the international rules that govern Canadian and Quebec soccer, Guest specified, provided the game's referee judges "it doesn't create a danger to the player himself, herself or another player. ... If you're going to wear it, it has to be safe."

Questioned at a campaign stop several hours earlier, Charest remembered his own days as a young soccer player.

"I remember a game when the referee stopped the game so that the players could put their

T-shirts in their shorts," the Liberal leader said at the Cite de la Sante hospital in Laval.

"My understanding is that the referee applied the rules of the soccer federation."

Guest, director of referees at the Canadian Soccer Association, declared himself "pleased that this is out in the open, because I believe we should accommodate everyone in the game.

"We want everyone to play soccer - that's our main aim."

On-field hijabs haven't created an issue in Ontario - where they are specifically allowed as religious headgear - or in any province beyond Quebec since his arrival from Britain in 2006, Guest said: "It's the first time this has raised its head."

With 28 years as a player, referee and soccer administrator, Guest runs officiating for 850,000 soccer players across Canada, at least 45 per cent of them female.

Dumont, leader of the Action democratique du Quebec party, said the hijab ban "is a case of sports safety" and "has absolutely nothing to do with" the controversy over reasonable accommodation.

It is "the people who are sports trainers who apply the rules that ensure the safety of people practising the sports," he said in the La Baie sector of Saguenay.

For Quebec's ban on hijabs to be lifted, said Valmie Ouellet, technical services co-ordinator for the regions at the Quebec Soccer Federation, the CSA would have to issue guidelines specifically permitting the hijab to be worn during matches. This would first require "a delicate debate," she said.

No such guideline is necessary, Guest retorted: "If you stick with Quebec's interpretation" of the international soccer safety rules, he said, "then players can't wear prescription eyeglasses. But they do."

Ouellet said it is irrelevant that a Muslim referee made the call against Azzy.

She pointed out jewellery's a no-no as well.

"That's in the same law, and if I was a fervent Catholic and I wanted to wear my chain and my crucifix around my neck for the game, I wouldn't be allowed to do so for the same safety reasons."

Two other youth soccer teams from the Nepean club supported Sunday's protest and also pulled out, according to Laval tournament organizer Carole Fortin. Quebec's hijab ban had never been raised as an issue before, she said, "to my knowledge."

Ouellet, the coach of Quebec's under-14 women's team, said she's never encountered any controversy involving hijabs in 35 years of soccer play, coaching and administration. About 40 per cent of Quebec's organized soccer players are women.

Louis Maneiro, Azzy's coach, called the referee's ruling "ridiculous," and added Quebec "is basically telling the world that no Muslim girl is allowed to play the sport."

Azzy had already played two tournament games Saturday sporting her hijab.

Ouellet said this violated the Quebec ban: "Maybe those referees were younger or less experienced."

janr@thegazette.canwest.com