Asian Football Chiefs Delighted with Hijab Approval; Goal-line Technology Moves Closer
Baku, March 6 (AZERTAC). Asian football leaders have welcomed the International Football Association Board to remove the ban on female footballers wearing the Islamic headscarf on the field of play.
IFAB`s eight members, who include representatives from FIFA and the four British football associations, unanimously approved the lifting of the hijab ban "pending an accelerated review, of health and safety issues" at a meeting in London on Saturday. It followed a high-profile campaign to scrap the ban led by FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein.
Final ratification will take place on July 2 after further testing of the new hijab designs to ensure they are safe. FIFA had previously banned hijabs because of fears raised about choking.
Acting Asian Football Confederation president Zhang Jilong said in a statement: "I thank the IFAB for doing the right thing.
"This positive decision will remove all barriers and bring in more women players into the game. This also shows the world that FIFA and the game`s lawmakers are serious about making the game accessible to all and preserving its status as the number one sport in the world."
Zhang, who is campaigning to win the presidency of the AFC on a permanent basis, thanked FIFA president Sepp Blatter and, in particular, Prince Ali "for the determined manner in which he took up cudgels on behalf of the women players who were stopped from playing football because they wore hijabs. HRH Prince Ali convincingly proved that the hijab is more of a cultural symbol than a religious one".
Prince Ali of Jordan launched his campaign to overturn the law on hijabs last year when members of Iran`s women`s team were prevented from playing in a 2012 Olympic qualification match for wearing a headscarf.
"I am deeply grateful that the proposal to allow women to wear a headscarf in football was unanimously endorsed by all members of IFAB," he said in a statement.
"I welcome the decision for an accelerated process to further test the current new and safe design presented. I am confident that once the final ratification in the July Special Meeting of IFAB takes place, we will see many delighted and happy players returning to the football field and playing the game that they love."
Prince Ali thanked the IFAB members "for their leadership and vision in fulfilling the dreams of many women around the world. As President Blatter once said, the future of football is indeed feminine".
Football`s lawmakers also backed the use of goal-line technology at the meeting.
Of the eight goal-line technology (GLT) systems tested by EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) in the first phase of testing in November and December, two companies were approved to take part in the second stage.
Hawk-Eye system uses optical recognition with cameras, whilst GoalRef utilises a magnetic field with a special ball to identify a goal situation.
The second test phase between March and June will "rigorously assess the reliability and accuracy of each system, as well as how robust the technology is", IFAB said.
Should one or both companies fulfil the criteria, a special IFAB meeting in Kiev on July 2 will decide whether to introduce goal-line technology into the game.
The English Premier League is hopeful of using the chosen GLT system in games from August onwards. The Club World Cup in Japan in December could be the first major FIFA event to adopt the technology.
Other decisions made by IFAB on Saturday include FIFA`s agreement to withdraw a proposal to allow a fourth substitution to be used during extra-time in Cup matches.
The proposal regarding Law 12 (Fouls and Misconduct) concerning the "triple punishment" sanction - a penalty, sending off and a suspension for a player fouling to stop a goal-scoring opportunity - is to be reviewed further.
IFAB received a presentation on the Additional Assistant Referees (AAR) experiment conducted by UEFA, a system which is favoured by its president Michel Platini who is against goal-line technology.
Experiments with AAR are on-going in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, as well as competitions in Brazil, Morocco and Qatar. A final report will be made at the special IFAB meeting on July 2, the day after the final of the month-long Euro 2012 tournament in Poland and Ukraine.
The 127th Annual General Meeting will take place in Edinburgh from March 1-3, 2013.
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