Who Makes the Rules?

The first article that I read concerning the Iranian women’s soccer team made me feel empathetic for them and the way the decision was carried out simply because it was not decided till after that the team made it through the qualifying games that they could not be allowed to play because of their hijabs being a “choking hazard”. My empathy for them changed to anger towards the FIFA organization after I read another article and an individual’s opinion about the situation. There is a FIFA rule that prohibits "Players and officials shall not display political, religious, commercial or personal messages or slogans in any language or form on their playing or team kits." This I found at least more of a valid reason besides the “choking hazard” reason. But then I felt as though that then why is it that FIFA teams’ can wear crosses around their neck or have a Nike logo or Adidas on their jersey as a form of sponsorship.

If the rule was enforced always, the rule could uphold this decision. There have been complaints several years back about the displaying of religious symbolism on nations’ jerseys by a fan, which can be seen here. But what really upset me was the man creating this dilemma for the Iranian women’s soccer team was not long before trying to make it mandatory for the women teams participating in the FIFA tournament to wear “hot pants” to increase the viewership. I do not understand why a man can try to demoralize the validity of the women’s soccer league by trying to make it degrading, instead of empowering. Other women and young girls mainly watch women’s soccer, to go about requiring “hot pants”, is furthering the male dominance over women and how they are portrayed to the world. It is upholding the negative thought of women being good to only watch if they look appealing sexually and not for the sport that they are playing. The women on the soccer teams should decide if they want a league uniform change, not the male president only concerned about his profits and male viewership.

Would this be the appropriate way for women’s soccer to display their bodies and corporate sponsors?

Here is a video where both opinions are presented and debated.