Soccer Game Cancelled Due to Incorrect Hair Color (I Know, Right?)
Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is squarely behind us, it’s good to see people getting back to the things in life that really matter. Of course I’m referring to the hair color of soccer players, a national crisis.
Ok so sarcasm aside, this is an actual story out of China. I triple checked to make sure I hadn’t accidently been redirected to The Onion, but this is appearing on BBC News and the Daily Mail. The facts are pretty straight forward, there was a soccer game between two universities in China (Jimei and Fuzhou). The officials decided that the two teams didn’t meet the established standards, and both teams were warned ahead of time that multiple players had hair that was too light.
The women immediately went to a nearby salon to get hair dye, and tried to remedy the problem. Apparently one team succeeded, while the other team had a player whose hair was still too light, and another whose hair was still wet. Scandalous, I know. Obviously no soccer player has ever played in a game with damp hair. The end of the story is that Fuzhou had to forfeit.
In case you missed it, my favorite two quotes from the story are these lines.
- “Athletes are not allowed to dye their hair”
- “Team members from both sides bought black hair dye to correct the problem”
Now which is it? It doesn’t say anything about original hair color, it specially states no hair dye. So how is making these women hurriedly dye their hair actually fixing the problem?
Lets take a look at the rest of the guidelines for appearance. You know, the standards set to prevent society from devolving into madness.
“Athletes at all stages shall not have tattoos, dye their hair, wear weird hairstyles, or wear any accessories, otherwise they will be ineligible for the competition.”
I guess pretty standard stuff for a country that isn’t a big fan of individuality, but one more thing stands out. Weird hair styles, accessories, all that stuff is obvious if a player has them or not. But it specifically bans all tattoos, not just visible tattoos. Who checks that?
-Kip