The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 77/No. 26      July 8, 2013

 
Quebec Soccer Federation forced
to reverse chauvinist turban ban
 
BY JOE YOUNG
MONTREAL — After 12 days of protests here, FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, overturned a ban on turbans that had been imposed June 2 by the Quebec Soccer Federation. “Safety” was the pretext under which players were suddenly barred from wearing Sikh turbans, patkas and keskis on the field.

When asked at a press conference June 3 what she would tell a five-year-old boy in a turban who wanted to play, QSF director general Brigitte Frot replied, “They can play in their backyard. But not with official referees, not in the official rules of soccer. They have no choice.” She acknowledged she knew of no injuries caused by turbans.

Fern da Silva, president of the Pierrefonds Soccer Association, rejected the ban. “In the club, we’ve decided that we’re going to do whatever we feel is right,” da Silva said. The Canadian Soccer Association suspended the Quebec Federation June 10 over the ban.

On June 12 a soccer team in Montreal wore orange head coverings during a game to show their opposition to the ban. Coach Ihab Leheta told Canada AM that the team, which has no Sikh players, felt it was important to show solidarity with players directly targeted by the rule.

A range of bourgeois politicians from all the main parties in the federal parliament in Ottawa opposed the ban.

The bourgeois nationalist Parti Quebecois government of Quebec backed the ban and insisted it was a provincial matter, not a federal one. “The Quebec federation has the right to make its own rules,” Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said June 11. “It’s autonomous, it’s not bound by the Canadian federation.”

Samir Ghrib, technical director of Royal-Select Beauport, a top Quebec amateur club, supported the ban. “Religion doesn’t have a place on sports fields,” he said.

A day after FIFA weighed in, the Quebec Federation reversed its decision.

“I think the community is happy and relieved that Quebec children can go back to playing soccer,” Prem Vinning of the World Sikh Organization of Canada told CTV News Channel June 15.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home