British football: where are the Muslim female footballers? Exploring the connections between gender, ethnicity and Islam

Abstract

This research article explores the ways in which self‐recognition as a footballer, in terms of ethnicity, along with cultural values and religious adherence have impacted on the identities of members of the British Muslim Women’s Football Team and their choice to compete at the Women’s Islamic Games (WIG) in Iran in 2005. The article offers new information on an emerging research area, highlighting issues previously missing from accounts of girls and women’s football in the UK. The article adopts a social constructionist framework in unravelling the experiences and perceptions of the British Muslim Women’s Football Team and explores how identities are shaped and reinforced through playing football. The research findings of this study are based on five years of participant observation and 16 semi‐structured interviews with members of the British Muslim Women’s Football Team. Through a focus on interview transcript material this article seeks to entangle the complexity of gender, ethnicity and Islam and the ways in which these factors impact on the football identities of Muslim women in Britain. The experiences and perceptions of the players in the British Muslim Women’s Football Team are located within British football, and importantly, the article investigates whether there is room for the hijab in British football.

Notes

1. Weiss, ‘Identity Reinforcement in Sport’.

2. Ibid., 393

3. Fairclough, Language and Power.

4. Ahmad, ‘An Exploration of Muslim Women’s Experiences’.

5. Carrington and McDonald, ‘Race’, Sport and British Society; Horne, Tomlinson, and Whannel, Understanding Sport.

6. Scraton, Caudwell, and Holland, ‘Bend It Like Patel’.

7. Carrington, ‘Sport, Masculinity and Black Cultural Resistance’.

8. Bains, ‘Asians Can Play Football’; Johal, ‘Playing their Own Game’.

9. Collins and Kay, Sport and Social Exclusion.

10. Burdsey, British Asians and Football; Collins and Kay, Sport and Social Exclusion; Sport England, National Statistics.

11. Burdsey, British Asians and Football; Fleming, ‘Racial Science and South Asian and Black Physicality’; Johal, ‘Playing Their Own Game’.

12. Bains and Patel, Asians Can’t Play Football; Bains, ‘Asians Can Play Football’.

13. Scraton, Caudwell, and Holland, ‘Bend It Like Patel’; Ratna, ‘Taking the Power Back’.

14. Ansari, 2004 cited in Benn, ‘When Mixed‐Sex Physical Education Means Exclusion’.

15. Benn, ‘When Mixed‐Sex Physical Education Means Exclusion’.

16. Ansari, 2004 cited in Benn, ‘When Mixed‐Sex Physical Education Means Exclusion’.

17. Walseth and Fasting, “Islam’s View on Physical Activity and Sport’; Chelsea, ‘Moroccan Soccer Unveiled’; Soubhi, ‘Physical Education and Sport in the Life of Iraqi Women’; De Vries, ‘Reflections’; White and Holmes, ‘Football Fever’; Pfister, ‘Women and Sport in Iran’.

18. Lindsay and McEwan, ‘Islamic Principles and Physical Education’; De Knop and Theeboom, ‘Implications of Islam on Muslim Girls’ Sport Participation’.

19. Ratna, ‘Taking the Power Back’, 19.

20. Ahmad, ‘An Exploration of Muslim Women’s Experiences’; Benn and Ahmed, ‘Alternative Visions’; Beiruty, ‘Muslim Women in Sport’; Daiman, ‘Women in Sport in Islam’; Sarwar, Proposals for Progress; Zaman, ‘Islam, Well‐being and Physical Activity’.

21. The Qur’an, Surah Fatir and Surah An‐Nur; Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil; Mernissi, Beyond the Veil; Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite; Odeh, ‘Post‐Colonial Feminism and the Veil’.

22. Ahmad, ‘An Exploration of Muslim Women’s Experiences’.

23. Benn and Ahmed, ‘Alternative Visions’.

24. The Muslim News, ‘Head Scarf Controversy Ends Game’.

25. Blatchford, ‘FIFA Should Have Overruled Hijab Ban’.

26. Board of Directors Meeting, 95.

27. Allen, ‘Justifying Islamophobia’.

28. Ahmad, ‘An Exploration of Muslim Women’s Experiences’.

29. Ibid.; Benn and Ahmed, ‘Alternative Visions’.

30. Hargreaves, ‘The Muslim Female Heroic’, 66.

31. Benn and Koushkie‐Jahromi, ‘Improving Inclusion’.

32. Ibid., 7.

33. Benn and Ahmed, ‘Alternative Visions’.

34. Denscombe, The Good Research Guide; Burgess, Studies in Qualitative Methodology.

35. Denscombe, The Good Research Guide.

36. Hashimi, ‘Flying the Chador’; Hayes, Principles of Social Psychology; Potter and Wetherall, Discourse and Social Psychology.

37. Hargeaves, ‘The Muslim Female Heroic’.

38. Wright, ‘Analysing Sportsmedia Texts’.

39. Christopherson and Janning, ‘Two Kicks Forward’.

40. Inayat, ‘The Meaning of Being a Muslim’; Malik, ‘British or Muslim’.

41. See Ahmad, ‘An Exploration of Muslim Women’s Experiences’ for the distinction between cultural and Islamic traditions.

42. Harris, ‘The Image Problem’; Caudwell, ‘Women’s Football in the United Kingdom’; Cox and Thompson, ‘Facing the Bogey’.

43. Cox and Thompson, ‘Facing the Bogey’, 7.

44. Scraton, Caudwell, and Holland, ‘Bend It Like Patel’; Pfister et al., ‘Women and Football’.

45. Weiss, ‘Identity Reinforcement In Sport’, 393.

46. Caudwell, ‘Women’s Football in the United Kingdom’.

47. For example, hijab wearers are oppressed – Bullock, ‘Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil’.

48. Inayat, ‘The Meaning of Being a Muslim’.

49. Stempel, Adult Participation’.