See one of the players have a haircut on the slidelines before a match taking place in Saudi Arabia in order to comply with Saudi Football Federation guidelines as authorities in the country crack down on footballer hairstyles deemed to be anti-Islamic.
A heated debate takes place amongst a crowd that assembles around the puzzled-looking Al-Shabab goalkeeper Waleed Abdullah before a match can kick-off as two exasperated-looking Western coaches, one of whom appears to be Belgian Michel Preud’homme, watch on.
The video, which was posted online this weekend but could be of some age as Preud’homme left Al-Shabab in September 2013 to join Club Brugge, then shows one of the officials taking scissors to the head of of the player, cutting off a small mohawk that can barely be seen by the camera.
On Saturday, GulfNews.com said:
The head of the kingdom’s youth organisation Tuesday asked its sport federations and Olympic committee to “ban the qazaa phenomenon”, using an Arabic name for eccentric styles often sported by footballers, the website www.arriyadiyah.com reported.
Such haircuts are against Islam and Saudi traditions, one commentator wrote in the newspaper Al Jazirah on Friday, urging the football federation to “impose sanctions” on offending players whose “bizarre haircuts are imitated by their fans in schools”.
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