My First World Cup: Nouhaila Benzina makes history without playing
In a purely footballing sense, Nouhaila Benzina’s first experience of a World Cup was uneventful.
She warmed up with her fellow substitutes pre-match. She watched from the bench as her Moroccan team-mates started well before falling to a 6-0 defeat to international heavyweights Germany in their first-ever World Cup match. And she left the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium without featuring in the game.
All 23 Morocco players at this tournament are making history as the first team to represent both the country and the Arab world at a Women’s World Cup. Whist that achievement deserves recognition in itself, Benzina is also the only player of 736 competing who wears a hijab when she plays.
FIFA banned players from wearing ‘head coverings that exposed the neck’ in 2007 following an incident at a youth football tournament in Canada. 10-year-old Asmahan Mansour was not allowed to take part after she refused to remove her hijab at the request of the referee.
In 2011, an Olympic qualifier between Jordan and Iran was postponed after it was deemed that the Iranian players hijabs did not meet FIFA requirements. The headgear they wore had previously been allowed by football’s governing body, meaning players understandably became distressed when the match officials informed them they could not play just minutes before the scheduled kick off.
Images of the distraught players made headlines across the world and acted as a catalyst for groups such as Right 2 Wear and Fifpro to lobby FIFA to permit the wearing of hijabs.
In 2014, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke announced that religious head coverings would be permitted on the pitch as long as they met IFAB medical regulations. October 2016 saw hijabs worn for the first time at a FIFA tournament – the Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan where a handful of players from the host nation wore them.
There are hundreds of footballers across the world who display their religious beliefs whilst playing. It is common to see tattoos of crucifixes and prominent religious figures, and goal celebrations can range from pointing to the heavens to praying on the ground. Yet the hijab has not yet become commonplace in football.
The reasons for this deserve a much more thorough analysis than a comment piece on a World Cup match could ever provide, but it is for this reason that Benzina’s presence at this World Cup is so significant.
Ahead of the game against Germany, Assmaah Helal, co-founder of the Muslim Women in Sports Network, said: “Girls will look at Benzina [and think] ‘That could be me.
“The policymakers, the decision-makers, the administrators will say, ‘We need to do more in our country to create these accepting and open and inclusive spaces for women and girls to participate in the game.’”
Benzina has been held up as a role model and a trailblazer, and understandably so. She, along with Palenstinian match official Heba Saadieh – who will also be wearing a hijab whilst appearing at the tournament – is representing a community that recent history has shown is not always welcome in football.
Six members of the Morocco squad at this World Cup play their club football in France. As of last month, Benzina or any other player who wears an Islamic headscarf, would not be able to feature alongside them after a court ruled in favour of a French Football Federation (FFF) ban.
Whereas FIFA prohibited the hijab on the basis of safety concerns, French lawmakers have made no secret that this is an attempt to uphold secularism.
The court ruled that sporting bodies can ‘impose a neutrality requirement on their players in competitions and sporting events, to guarantee the smooth running of matches’. The FFF ban on ‘any sign or clothing clearly showing political, philosophical, religious or union affiliation’ was deemed to be ‘appropriate and proportionate’.
In the aftermath of the ban, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, “You shouldn’t wear religious clothing when you play sports… when you play football, you don’t need to know the religion of the person in front of you.”
“No to the Hijab in sport. And we will pass a law to make sure it is respected,” tweeted Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party.
France has the largest Muslim population of any country in Europe. The influence of Muslim players on its footballing history is undeniable. It would therefore seem appropriate that the country’s football authorities help to protect the personal beliefs of members of the Muslim community rather than taking the game away from individuals for no other reason than political point scoring.
A number of protest movements have sprung up in response to the FFF ruling, with members of a group known as the ‘Hidjabers’ playing a game of football outside of the French Senate to show their opposition.
Any individual that makes it to a World Cup probably deserves endless personal accolades. Whilst Benzina has in no way asked to be recognised as more significant than her team-mates or any other player at this tournament, her presence alone, whether on the bench or on the pitch, is proof that you do belong in football if you wear a hijab.
