‘It’s brutal’ – how French football’s hijab ban is affecting Muslim women

Welcome to Moving the Goalposts, the Guardian’s new (and free) women’s football newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version once a week, just pop your email in below.

The women’s game is built on a foundation of work, sweat and tears all over the world to get us to where we are now – record-breaking audiences, professionalism and steady growth in interest. However, there are still an enormous amount of obstacles to overcome and one of them is the ban on Muslim women wearing the hijab in connection with football in France. This is not just about France, though, it affects how the world views female Muslim players – professional and amateurs.

“I gave up playing football when I was 20 because I started to wear hijab,” says Shireen Ahmed, a Canadian sports journalist and activist. “Living without football was not going to be possible for me but it’s really hard to find a re-entry point back when you feel that way.”

For her, more than hindering the chances of Muslim girls becoming footballers, the decision excludes them from being part of growing the game at every level. “It’s not just playing,” she says of the situation in France. “They cannot coach, they cannot officiate. They are literally excluded from the entire space. It’s brutal. There’s a clear ‘we hate Muslim women’ vibe.”

This week, Muslim people celebrated Eid al-Fitr all over the world, a festival that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. But in France, as Lyon are getting ready for their 10th Women’s Champions League final, the French Football Federation still excludes women from the game because of the ban on “ostentatious” religious symbols (which includes the Jewish kippah). “It is part of a system of white