Canadian MP launches petition to allow Sikh children to play soccer
Friday, 07/06/2013
http://www.punjabnewsline.com/news/canadian-mp-launches-petition-to-allow-sikh-children-to-play-soccer/80602
OTTAWA(ON): Brampton Member of Parliament Parm Gill continued his call for the Quebec Soccer Federation’s to overturn its decision to ban turban-wearing players, with the launch of a petition directed to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association.
“The Quebec Soccer Federation, in its decision to uphold this discriminatory policy, stated that it would amend the rule if FIFA were to change the existing Laws of the Game,” said MP Gill.
“This petition will allow everyone around the world to express to FIFA, soccer’s governing body, that rules which allow this sort of exclusion based on religious or cultural factors must not be allowed to stand.”
The petition, hosted on the website Change.org, calls on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association to, “immediately amend or clarify the wording of Law 4 of the Laws of the Game to expressly permit the wearing of religious head coverings to prevent such discriminatory policies from being instituted by regional governing bodies with the goal of excluding participants due to their religious, cultural or ethnic identity.”
Turbans, including the patka and keski typically worn by young Sikhs, were first banned on Quebec soccer fields last year, when the federation began cracking down on perceived violations of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Law 4. MP Gill issued a series of open letters to the Quebec Soccer Federation, Canadian Soccer Association, and FIFA on the matter, which was reported on extensively around the globe.
MP Gill hopes the petition will encourage FIFA to act on the existing precedent for amendments to Law 4. Previously, the Law as amended to permit the wearing of Hijabs by Muslim women, arguing there was little additional injury risk, nor performance benefit, to wearing the garment.
