The Hindu : Sport / Football : FIFA's `no' to feminine touch

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004

Sport

Sport - Football

FIFA's `no' to feminine touch

MEXICO CITY, DEC. 20. Soccer's world governing body has rejected a request to sign a female player by a professional men's soccer club in Mexico, a spokesman for FIFA in Switzerland said on Sunday.

Maribel Dominguez impressed officials of Mexican second-division club Celaya enough to give her a chance.

The 26-year-old signed for the men's team on Wednesday, sending a mixture of shock and thrill through Mexico.

The request from Celaya was turned down during a weekend meeting of FIFA's executive committee in Zurich, Switzerland.

In a written statement, the committee stressed that ``there must be a clear separation between men's and women's football.''

``This is laid down in league football and in international matches by the existence of gender-specific competitions, and the Laws of the Game and FIFA's regulations do not provide for any exceptions,'' the committee announced.

Dominguez had signed a two-year deal, but Celaya deferred to the international body on whether a woman could play in the league.

Smallish woman

At 1.63 meters (5-foot-4), Dominguez is small for a woman's team. But Dominguez, who scored 45 goals in 46 games for the Mexican women's national team and played one season in the American Women's United Soccer Association, said she was beginning a special training regimen to add weight before next month's season opener.

Officials already had designed a special anatomically correct jersey for her.

After the signing, pundits of sports pages and radio shows offered everything from applause to admonishment for Dominguez.

Former men's national team coach Manuel Lapuente told reporters his father had told him ``You don't touch a woman even with a rose petal. ... Imagine how I'm supposed to face a woman and have to slide into her. Well, what am I going to do?'' — AP

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport