But special hejab-compliant game uniforms had been approved by FIFA last summer after long negotiations.
It appears the Iranian women were not wearing that approved uniform. But no one in Iran explained why the team had abandoned the uniform they agreed to last year. In fact, one Iranian official insisted they were wearing that approved uniform while FIFA said they were not.
The Iranian women’s team was in Amman to play Jordan in the second 
qualifying match for next year’s Olympics when the Bahraini official said they couldn’t play in their outfits because they did not meet FIFA rules. He then awarded the match to the Jordanians with a score of 3-0, the standard procedure when a team is disqualified for a rule violation.
FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, had specifically approved uniforms for Muslim women players a year ago. The Iranian girls’ youth team then flew off to Singapore and played in the first Youth Olympics, a FIFA-sponsored event, in those outfits last fall.
FIFA had argued that the traditional Iranian headscarf that circles the head and neck posed a choking hazard. The compromise provided for a head covering that extends into a sack that wraps around the hair but not the neck.
A photo from Amman appeared to show the Iranians wearing a head covering that circled the neck, though the photo was not entirely clear. The photo showed some of the women in tears after they were disqualified.
FIFA headquarters in Switzerland Monday issued a statement saying the Iranian women were not wearing the approved uniform and that their expulsion was therefore appropriate and proper.
“FIFA’s decision in March 2010, which permitted that players be allowed to wear a cap that covers their head to the hairline, but does not extend below the ears to cover the neck, was still applicable,” FIFA said. “Despite initial assurances that the Iranian delegation understood this, the players came out wearing the hejab, and the head and neck totally covered, which was an infringement of the ‘Laws of the Game’,” referring to the FIFA rulebook.
“The match commissioner and match referee therefore decided to apply correctly the Laws of the Game, which ended in the match being abandoned,” FIFA said.
Rana Husseini, head of Jordan’s female soccer committee, reported that the Iranian team was not wearing the approved uniform. She said three of her own players also showed up in an unapproved uniform and were banned from the game along with the entire Iranian team.
“The problem,” she said, “is that the head cover assigned and approved by FIFA for women players to wear does not suit them as it reveals part of the neck—and this is not allowed and it is not acceptable [to many players].”
The uniform approved by FIFA last year was adopted only after considerable controversy within the Iranian soccer federation. News reports said the head of women’s soccer, Marzieh Akbarabadi, strongly opposed the outfit that FIFA had approved. Akbarabadi walked out of the first demonstration of the new uniform last July, saying she had not been consulted and didn’t approve. She did not say what she thought was wrong with the design.
There was speculation the Iranian team might have been sent to Amman in Akbarabadi’s disapproved uniform.
Iranian soccer officials, with one exception, have not said what uniform they issued to the women and have not acknowledged that it was not the uniform they agreed to last year. They have simply told reporters in Tehran that the Iranian Football Federation had reached an agreement last year on a uniform that met both FIFA rules and Islamic rules. But they dodged the question of whether that uniform was being worn in Amman.
Many news reports in Iran made a major point of the fact that the referee was a Bahraini national, with implications dropped that the decision against Iran was a political decision stemming from Iran’s frequent criticisms of the Bahraini monarchy.
Akbarabadi took that tack. She was the one Iranian official who insisted that the women were wearing the uniform approved last year by FIFA. But then, she said, “In reality, the Bahraini referee who banned the Iranian team took advantage of an international event to benefit his own country. By standing by the nasty, political decision of this Bahraini, FIFA has put its dignity on the line.”
Ali Kafashian, the president of the Iranian Football Federation, announced Saturday that he would file a complaint with FIFA against the expulsion of the Iranian women’s team in Amman.
PressTV said the team had earlier played its first match of the qualifying round in the unapproved uniforms without any objection. After the blowup in Amman before the game with Jordan, Iran forfeited its next game Sunday against Vietnam.
Iran was slated to play a five-sided round-robin in Amman with Thailand, Uzbek-istan, Vietnam and Jordan to determine which team would go to the next round against Asia’s five highest-ranked teams to decide which two Asian teams would go to the finals in the 2012 Olympics.
Jordan’s daily Ad-Dustur said the Iranian women’s team faces more potential disciplinary action. It said the team could be fined 20,000 Swiss francs ($24,000) and could be banned from all future international competition.
