FIBA Europe says she can't play
 

News story today that FIBA Europe has denied a request from the Israeli women's team to allow Naama Shafir, a point guard and an Orthodox Jewish player, to wear a t-shirt under her jersey. Shafir, who also plays for the University of Toledo, wears it for modesty reasons, as dictated by her religion. Israel appealed the decision for an exemption so she could compete in the upcoming European women's championship tournament, but FIBA Europe held that all players must wear the same uniform. The news story did not say if the ruling would have allowed all the players to wear t-shirts so that all players on the team would be wearing "the same uniform".

Im fine with that - Im sick of making accommodations to everyone and everything that wants to do something. No one wants to bend their beliefs (fine I get it) but why should everything bend to fit yours (or yours, or theirs, or hers, or his).

If you can't do it you can't do it. I'm not saying it's fair by any means or that it's even such a big deal to allow a t-shirt under the uniform but more that I'm just getting tired of religion and beliefs being used to alter things so that they work around what you like. Hey we all can't actually do everything, no matter what we were led to believe when we were growing up.

While I think there should be limits on the accomodations made for religion, those limits should, IMO, be restricted to safety and deception issues.

This ruling is just stupid, IMO.

+infinity

since we all don't think the same, we have to figure out a sensible way to work together. this is not a world of black-and-white...it's a world composed primarily of grey...

I completely agree. My point was that we all cannot do everything and we shouldn't expect that to be the reality. It sounds good though, I will admit that.

Up until the current FIBA Rules Edition (2008-12), undershirts were prohibited unless for medical reasons. The medical reason prohibition was dropped from the 2008-12 Rules Edition and no reason was given, meaning the rules do not make no mention pro or con regarding undershirts. Given that, I could not understand the ruling that was given. Especially, when one looks at the Rules Edition the covered the first Olympics in which the USA sent its NBA players (1992), the rules were quite specific that everybody on the team must wear the same shoe (including the same color), yet NBA players on Team USA wore the shoes that they endorsed in direct violation of the rules.

MTD, Sr.


P.S. The player in question plays collegiately for The University of Toledo (Ohio).