 Thank you very much, Professor. My name is Dr Simon Rowe, and it's my pleasure to welcome you all on behalf of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, CISD, of which Omar is a graduate and which I've worked for the last three years establishing the MA module in Sport and Diplomacy. I'm going to introduce our panellists, and then we'll get cracking with the event this evening. First of all, Rhymla Acton almost needs no introduction, but since I've merely kindly printed it off and I've got it written down, I'll do you the justice of the first Muslim women and one of only six women in total to sit on the FA Council, the Football Association Council, maybe a governing body of the British Association. Chair of the Muslim Women's Sports Foundation, no little task in itself, and worked with the Olympic, London 2012 Olympic bid too. Also runs a diversity consultancy and co-founded the listening service, a non-profit which provides women with culturally sensitive advice and support. I won't hold this again for you, but she's a Liverpool fan, as I read here, and has both coached and played football to a high level. Next to her, Imran Azan, co-founder and trustee of the Association of Muslim Footballers. He's a founder of ThisIsWheel.co, a smartphone-only digital store in telling consultancy, and the media director at the sharing economy advocacy group, thepeoplewhoshare.com. With these two and Omar, who almost needs no introduction, but as his PhD supervisor I probably should give him a little chance to laud it up before I start grilling him, or rather you start grilling him. Omar, a graduate of CISD, and now a member of the Centre for Islamic Studies, is doing very important work, and I really do stress this without making his head too large to fill out the door. Really important work on the way that British football deals with Muslim identity. I think it's the confluence of these different identities, and I use that term deliberately, that's really important that draws out of Omar's work. I won't do anything more than that because you're the people here to ask the questions. Without any further ado, we shall begin asking the questions. Miriam is going to be our social media darling this evening. My battery's run out, so I'm going to be resolved on the old bit of paper. Without any further ado, we begin by asking our audience to just begin getting the brain flowing, get your questions posed. Miriam. We've got some really good questions from the CISD Sports and Diplomacy MA students. I was trying to think up some clever questions, but they've done all the hard work for me, so this is great. I'm sorry that I can't attribute credit for these questions, I don't know who asked them, but well done. The first one is, do you think it's fair to the whole panel that athletes are branded as Muslim players and that their faith is a part of their football identity when that isn't the case for footballers of different faiths? And just a reminder of that hashtag folks, that's a hashtag so ask FMD. Rymla, I think you should kick off. I think it's just that question is quite an interesting one because certainly if you look at, if you just take women's sport for example, often times female athletes will always talk about the fact that they want to just be seen as athletes and they don't want the female part to really come into it. But often times, I mean that's the identity that people see. I think personally, in everything that I do in diversity and inclusion within sport, I am ultimately, I don't want to be seen as an Asian woman or a Muslim woman doing what I do, but ultimately I recognise that that's a part of, it's an inevitable part of what I do because we're such a rare species that it's inevitable. So I think, from my perspective, I actually think that a lot of Muslim athletes embrace their Muslimness and they do a really good job of putting that out there in a positive way encountering any other narratives. Yes, it's an interesting one. I mean, Muslims are pretty much flavour of the month of the moment, right? You might have noticed. Every month. It's really a personal decision for these professional sports people to take as to how they live their faith, whether it's publicly or privately. I think there is a perception if they do anything remotely Islamic that they are identified as Muslim relatively quickly. And people like to jump on that, both Muslim and non Muslim, both for positive reasons and negative reasons. And sports people in general, especially footballers in our experience, are quite shy to show parts of their life. They just want to be seen as players, not to be treated really any differently, but ultimately if they were to do something in a game which indicates that they are Muslim then they are picked on for it or it is promoted for their purpose. So, for example, if we look at Mesut Ozil, right? This isn't somebody who overtly shouts from the rooftops that he is of the Islamic faith, but it's clear if you watch him pre-game he'll be making a prayer, okay? Now he has explained this and he's felt he's had to explain this because he's being asked about it. But actually for him it's a very private moment. And when he's asked about what he's praying for, he's saying he's praying for his teammates, which is quite interesting. Whereas should he really need to explain that? I mean there's no right or wrong answer to this and it is down to the individual, but there does seem to be a special onus or an expectation that Muslim players represent the faith and that's not always fair. It's an interesting question and I think given the fact that we have to also take into account the current political, social and economic climate, if we were to judge Muslim players as solely as athletes and participants within sporting competitions, I think it would be quite unfair to give them the label that they are Muslim, at the end of the day they wouldn't be where they are if they're not talented sports people. So a lot of it comes down to the fact that they are able to compete at the top level and in my case and my research where I've interviewed top elite sports people in the Premier League, you have many of them actually who say at the end of the day I want to be seen as a professional elite football player without the Muslim tagline. I mean if I assume that position because of the current climate and the Muslims are constantly in the news and I have an obligation or a duty to actually represent the faith in the best of manners, both on and off the field, both in front of the camera and away from the camera in their personal lives, then they will be happy to take that responsibility on board. But again, I think it's very important that we don't see for instance David Beckham being referred to as a Christian football player. We refer to him as number seven Manchester United, ex-England international, ex-England captain, but not anything to do with his faith and that goes with many other players who may be from the Mount Rastafarian faith or from the Buddhist faith. I believe it's Mario Baggio for instance who is of the Buddhist faith, not many people know that. Why doesn't Mario Baggio, why is he not on the front pages and people are talking about the fact that he is a Buddhist as well. So I think what is personal only becomes public in the public domain like Imran mentioned the case of Ozo and many other Muslim football players both in the UK and abroad where we see the act of personal symbolic actions are made in public and this is where it is important and quite significant where the label of Muslimness comes into play and how does that actually interact within the context of sport and also the context of like I mentioned social, political and economic. Just follow up on that and say how much, talking to the panel here, how much of those identities are prescribed, how much of them are adopted by the sportsmen and women that you're talking about here. This is something that one is forced to embrace because it's constantly the moniker that comes with another Mezzat Ozil in football rather than Mezzat Ozil World Cup winner Mezzat Ozil. What is the sort of hashtag so to speak ascribed to these individuals or indeed to particular sports that have cultural or religious qualifiers. So what I'm driving out here I suppose is the sort of different and multiple conflicting levels of identity that are at work. So you know your gender, your age, your religion, these are all factors that come into what is it that sort of trumps and it becomes a Muslim football rather than a left winger talent that's driven me. From my experience, the AMF doesn't take much for somebody to be labelled as a Muslim footballer rather than simply a footballer. It doesn't really take much. I was about to say it's both from Muslims and non-Muslims so we found, if you follow at the AMF on Twitter, if you want to do that feel free. We've got about 33,000 followers on there and we don't do anything highly intellectual with that following because we're simply there to inspire young people through our account. So if we see a player that's perhaps like Emery Chan for example but another Liverpool fan by the way. If we see Emery Chan on the sidelines making a prayer and there's a good picture of that then we'll tweet it and we'll find it's very popular. So you know we as an organisation we push out this image but also if there is, you know it will be noticed and it will be picked up sometimes subconsciously and consciously that a player has done something that labels him as a Muslim. And it's kind of like Muslims are given a special treatment as opposed to any other faith at this moment in time because all the other kind of socio-political stuff that surrounds the faith. So to answer your question it's both from within the Muslim community and from the mainstream community, the non-Muslim community and the media as well. I think just to add to that, I'm actually quite a firm believer in athlete activism. So whilst I agree that it's an individual's choice to whether that's a private moment or whether it's a public moment that's that individual's choice and we shouldn't be looking at or judging them in any particular way because of those choices. I still think that it's really important particularly given the climate right now that athletes do become activists. I mean in America everyone must have heard about the Black Lives Matter campaign and a lot of athletes from the NBA for example have come out and spoken about that quite publicly. We've seen the t-shirts, we've seen the tweets, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James etc coming out really publicly. But one of the first ever athlete, well the first athlete activist of this particular campaign was a woman who doesn't get the same kind of publicity obviously as LeBron and Kobe but her name's Ariana Smith and she was playing a game, a college basketball game in Missouri which is the same state as obviously when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson and she wasn't playing too far away from actually where the incident took place and she decided that she had to do something. So on college basketball game day she went along with her team, they lined up, ready to play, the national anthem's going off, the American flags in front of them all. It's how patriotic are the Americans that you don't disrupt the anthem. She decided and it's now an infamous moment to do something. She stepped forward from that line of her teammates and she put her hands up in the gesture which is now iconic. She stepped forward to the American flag and she just lay on the floor. She just went on to the floor and everyone's wondering what's going on like she hadn't told anyone what she was going to do. She lay there for four and a half minutes. Four and a half minutes. She didn't move. Everyone's coming up to her asking her, you know, is everything okay Ariana? You know, what's going on? The game couldn't start. After four and a half minutes she got up. She stayed there that long because that's how long it took for Michael Brown's body to be moved after he'd been killed. That was her statement. She became an activist that day. She used her field of play, whatever it is. She used that as a moment to make a statement. She walked off with the black power salute kind of walking off. That's the kind of stuff that you can't get away from that image in itself of someone doing that in front of you. That really hits you and I think what athletes decide to do Muslim or non-Muslim, like I say, is a personal choice, but ultimately it can have such a huge impact. We've got to use that power positively. That was actually connected to one of the questions that I had which was about the limitations then that are placed on Muslim footballers in seeking to operate in the realm of diplomacy because, forgive the question, but would this have any implications for her career? Would it have any implications for her ability to speak out and represent brands? These are all things that would affect her livelihood as a professional sportswoman. In her particular case, college basketball comes just below the women's NBA. She is a very good player. She's seen both the benefits, the blessings as well as the burdens of becoming an athlete activist. But actually people have rallied around her. People that have even a bigger say in what goes on in the sports field, the likes of Kobe and LeBron as I say, those kind of people have come around and supported her in that. So it is a difficult, nobody is saying it's easy. It does have an impact and I think we were saying earlier on that clubs have a lot of say in what their players do and you all know that as well in terms of the pressures that footballers are under all the time. Even the hijab ban that came in through FIFA, it was not just about religious headgear. It was about political statements. You can't make political statements on the field of play. So there's all sorts of restrictions. But I think that we should, wherever possible, try and kind of maneuver around those restrictions to really put out a positive message because it's needed. Just on that last point in terms of doing what you can. We do have any Egyptians here. Just the one. Marhaba. The reason I ask is to try and keep this short really. It's quite a long story. So as part of the AMF, we get a lot of interest from organisations in the Gulf. And on a couple of occasions, we've been asked to put together a team and take them out to Saudi Arabia to perform the pilgrimage, the minor pilgrimage to the Umrah and also to play a game. And only about seven or eight months ago, a couple of years ago, we played a game in Mecca. And this time we were asked to play in Medina, not me personally. I would have gladly played, but the other guys. And there's a player that you'll hopefully, I think, be aware of called Abutriqa, right? He's a tremendously famous guy in Egypt. Not many people, well, many people do know him in Europe, but in Egypt he is a hero. And he's seen as an activist. The problem for people like Abutriqa is that they're seen as political activists. And that's potentially quite dangerous for them as individuals. So they have to be very, very careful as to how they tread this line between standing up for particular things and putting their own personal safety at risk. And the thing is these guys are tremendously popular. They're doing tremendously non-political good work with young people and with society in general, both at home and abroad. I mean, there's somebody who won the African Player of the Year three times in a row. And we were with him, you know, I had to rescue him a few times outside the major mosque in Medina, where he was absolutely mobbed. And when I say mobbed, it's like you haven't seen this kind of mobbing before outside kind of like a very sacred place. So he's trying to get to the mosque to try and pray. And somebody spots him, another person spots him, and then suddenly there's a big crowd to basically try and release him from this. And then after we'd all gone home, within a month we're reading in the papers that his assets have been frozen and that there are restrictions that have been placed on him. So when it comes to putting yourself out there, it really depends who you are, where you are, as well. And so it's that last point that you made. It's to the degree that you can without actually suffering some pretty serious consequences. I think if we're looking at that in a broader context of sportsmen and women as activists, is there something particular about the Islamic faith or Muslim that we sit here today in the 21st century that makes it such a particular issue? Or is it just that we're in, you know, the society we live in broadly has identified Muslim as, you know, for all of the rights and wrong reasons that we can have a whole nother class about, that's the main identifier? Because sportsmen, activists, you know, have a long tradition. You know, it's not a new phenomenon having sportsmen and women as activists. Is there something about this utilising the Islamic faith that can bring that real positive advantage to both the individual, it's a media audience of a development programme or a humanitarian effort or a philanthropic endeavour? Or is it actually something that we're, you know, just trying to caricature as a Western media on the other end of the spectrum? I'm just going to get some sense of perspective in this. Can I maybe answer? I want to go back to the, I will answer your question Simon. Sorry, eventually you have to be in. But with regards to representation, I think that's very, very important because as an individual, when you are in the public domain, you are represented and you are representing. So there's a difference here. What I mean by that is you are either representing the Muslim community or the sporting community, but in the media you're represented as a multiple of identities. So I think there needs to be a clarification here in terms of where you are appropriated. So as a, for instance, let's take the case of Mouen Ali. So Mouen Ali is an English cricketer, a place for England. Has a, you know, evidently a very significantly large beard, which you know one can miss. But how do we refer to him? And it's interesting to pick up the commentary when we refer to Mouen Ali. And what I mean by this is there are many, many cases here where Muslim sports people, both men and women are put in a position where Mesut Özil is of Turkish descent. He's a German international, but when he's not playing well for instance, he's of Turkish descent. But when he's winning the World Cup and he's lifting the World Cup trophy, this is a great sign of integration. You know, we have a Turkish migrant who settled in Germany, has got a World Cup gold medal, perfect. And you could pretty much maybe, you know, put forward the same argument here in England. You could say, well, the answer to Muslim integration or success of Muslim integration is to have a number 10 England captain of Muslim and lift the trophy. And actually single-handedly, Messi-esque wins the trophy for England. But I think we're going back to your question, Simon, with regards to Islam and its influence or its capacity, so to speak, social capacity. I think individuals, Muslim sports people have two key responsibilities. We're talking about here where great power comes great responsibility. And I think in this regard, you know, you couldn't say otherwise. And I think they play as bridge builders with the non-Muslim community, but also play a role as ambassadors for the Muslim community. And I think here is the important correlation or relationship we have. So to the non-Muslim audience, what does, I mean, how did they perceive Denver Bar, for instance? And we've seen the case in Newcastle. We've had 45, 50,000 fans chanting for Denver Bar, a Ramadan song. So he clearly is, you know, up in Newcastle, where, you know, not too long ago, we had in the Northeast a strong contingent for UKIP voters. We have a massive, massive group of fans who take to the streets counter Pegida marches. So we're seeing here the political influence as well, where we're seeing fans coming out and seeing this bridge building played by Denver Bar, merely by scoring goals and postrating on the ground. At the same time, Denver Bar plays the role of ambassador. There are many, many Muslims who follow on Twitter who take much pride in what Denver Bar says and does, both on and off the field. To the extent that, in Daily Sabah, it was reported that someone tweeted Denver Bar and said, could you please wake me up for Fajr, the morning prayer? And he actually did. So he said, I will do that. So you actually literally have this intimate relationship where, you know, as a leader of your community, I should go around knocking on people's doors and waking them up for the morning prayer, as well as being a professional football player and winning medals and trophies around the globe. So I think there's a two-fold to that question. Obviously, I will say that because, you know, being in an academic world, there's always going to be a nuanced argument. But genuinely, within this case, there is definitely a sense of bridge building and also representation. But when that player does, for example, an act of prostration on the pitch, is that individual consciously making an act of resistance, like what we're talking about with Ariana, which was a very conscious act of resistance, which was thought through, like she thought through the whole four and a half minutes, and it was clear she was making a political statement. Isn't it the difference with Muslim footballers, is they just happen to be doing what Muslims do, but because of the political climate, there's far more significance attributed to it than it actually has even for them. I think the reaction to that, to what a Muslim player does, says more about the person reacting rather than the player who's performing. So if you see a player like Mohammed Besic, you know, for Everton, recently, I mean, he made quite a... He did it first, I don't know, I don't think I've ever seen this. Normally players score goals and then they make Sujood. He was a substitute and he was coming on the pitch and he did a Sujood. He did a prostration before. Everyone's there watching and waiting to come on. And how people react to that says more about them, really. I mean, how can you really interpret what that is? I mean, if you look at the states with the college football, God plays a small significant role in political public life in America. When you get a player crossing themselves or doing something overly Christian, it's just accepted, whereas I can't remember the name of the player, so maybe somebody can help me out. But a player, an American football player as a Muslim performed the prostration and it was a huge issue. I think Fox News had, it's filled for a week with that. So it depends who's watching and how they interpret it and how they want to interpret it. I think just to add to what Ola and Moran have said, it's also, you know, ultimately from my perspective, you can't change how something's going to be covered. I remember I was attending a workshop, this was a couple of years ago, my timelines are kind of skewed here, but we had the Woolwich, obviously the murderers in Woolwich, and it was soon after that and they were showing that the pages, the headlines, they had Mo Farah and they had the Woolwich murderers. Those were the two pictures that were used in the same paper. When it came to the murderers, obviously it was Muslim everywhere, but when it came to Mo Farah, there was nothing relating to his faith. That's ultimately an example of people will choose how they want to represent something and what they want to hone in on. The whole concept of Muslims in sport and what that means is nothing new. I remember growing up when Mido was at Middlesbrough and he had to deal with the bomber chance. This was probably a decade ago. As the Muslim Women's Sport Foundation has grown over the years, as soon as anyone heard anything about Muslim women, first of all, it was like suddenly a light bulb would, particularly in the news, a light bulb would hit and they'd want to just suddenly know what you're going to do and they were just so interested in what you're doing because it's Muslim and women and then you add in sport and they're just like, whoa, do Muslim women even play sport? Do they want to play sport? Aren't they stopped from playing sport? All of those kind of questions, and this is from a decade ago, so it's nothing new. I think that ultimately we see a lot of exposure of obviously Muslim male athletes. In the UK, we don't have as many Muslim female athletes, but we do have a number abroad, and actually what you see with those women, the likes of Ibtahaj Mohamed, who's in America, the number two US Saber Fencer consistent gold medalist, who talks about the fact that she came to our awards, which was at Wemley Stadium a few years back, and she won an international sportswoman of the year and she spoke about the fact that she decided not only to take up fencing as her sport because she was passionate about it, but she allowed her to still keep covered, and that was really important for her. But then she speaks out really publicly, she has a t-shirt which says everything's better in hijab, for her that's the message that she wants to give. So I think when it comes to female Muslim athletes, particularly the ones that wear hijab, they're almost forced into being activists because all anyone's interested in is the fact that they've got hijab around them, and so whether they want to or not, they're out there publicly representing Islam. And I think actually those international female athletes have taken on that role really positively and done some great stuff with it. Thinking about that role that people can adopt or have it portrayed or prescribed to them, you think about one of the questions that one of our students has asked here about perhaps the most, to speak to the fact that this has been going on a long time, is Mohammad Ali as a representative of Muslim faith and someone who really did take the stance to injure their sporting career at the height of World Heavyweight Champion, renounced that by virtue of being drafted by a government structure, took that opportunity to make a statement about their faith, which had a real detrimental effect on that particular career at that point. The story of redemption afterwards is the quality that sport gives you as a narrative, but to what extent does that speak to the fact that sports and politics have always mixed and that we are current focus, and indeed our focus this evening is on a particular religion's affiliation with sport. But actually these are such long standing issues that in five years' time we could be talking about LGBT issues, diplomacy in sport, or just another identifier and what makes sport and politics so integrated, despite the fact that so many sports federations will tell you that we have nothing to do with politics. We're purely interested in the game, the spectacle and all those kind of things. How do you reconcile that in your mind? Sport is politics, and politics is sport. If you look at the history of nation states, if I just take for example the IOC now, the International Olympic Committee, there are more nations recognised by the International Olympic Committee than the United Nations. So bear that in mind. So you see FIFA, you see the IOC, you see IAAF, these are massive governing bodies which are almost much more powerful than the nation states. And arguably have much more bigger budget if you wanted to assess the GDP per staff personnel, I'm sure will be much larger than many countries across the globe. So the political influence they have, these governing bodies is immense. And that plays a significant role with regards to business with media which obviously we're talking about today. And the role of, I think this is last week we had Adidas pulled out from a sponsorship deal with IAAF because of the doping scandal. And that really harms the governing body. So if you look at that case, particularly the idea of representation, do I want to associate myself with this governing body? And you have a lot of, I mean, it's quite interesting, there's an interesting correlation. I was speaking about this with my students last week about the role of brick nations and hosting mega events. It's quite interesting that you actually look at the brick nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. They've all hosted mega events, sporting mega events. So the idea that to be a developed nation you must host a mega event. So that's part of a checklist criteria. So you're not a developed nation unless you've ticked the sporting mega event list. Obviously we know in the case of Brazil they'll be hosting the Olympics this year, hosted the World Cup two years ago. Russia will be hosting, or have hosted, the Sochi Olympics, will be hosting the World Cup in 2018. After that you have India who hosts, they have the India Premier League. So arguably that is a sporting mega event of the multi-million pound industry. You have China who hosted Beijing. And not too long ago there was a state vision from China to the UK to develop football in China because they want to host the World Cup in China. And if I'm not mistaken, the UK, the British government has invested three million pounds in that deal, which is very, very interesting to see the behind the scenes. They visited Manchester City Football Club, they're talking about bringing exporting football, the British game, the English game to the world. So the idea that it goes beyond the fact that it's just only a sporting game, you're a healthy competition, it's actually a form of cultural imperialism, if you will. And I refer back to Pierre de Coubertin, who's the founder, the founding father of the Olympic Committee, who, if you look at his political memoirs, he was the support of the new fascist Nazi regime. But he was heavily, heavily interested in exporting this ideal, this Eurocentric ideal of sport and sporting competitions of different parts of the globe. So I think, I mean that's already one example, but there are many examples where you see politics and sports are heavily influenced by each other. Albert Tricker is one of them, which should be mentioned this evening. Albert Tricker wouldn't have been imprisoned if he had not. If he wasn't vocal against the Mubarak regime. If the Al Ahli Ultras, you know, they rallied in Tahrir Y Square, I was there back in 2011. And also you have cases where Albert Tricker who lifts his shirt, you know, I love Palestine, free Palestine, same with Canute, and they face repercussions. But it's important in these cases, they did not face repercussions because of the political message. In these cases they were faced, you know, by the hands with regards to the sponsorship deals. Obviously as a sponsor I have airtime on camera. So if I lift the shirt off, that's why players will get a yellow card if they take their shirt off because it means the airtime on that individual is not given it's full right for the sponsor. However there are political repercussions, for instance in the case of Albert Tricker, yes he gets a yellow card which is standard for any player, but then he gets chased off, the assets frozen, within the political consequence. And even Muhammad Ali as well. I mean I think it's totally fair to say that Muhammad Ali we can't, I mean we as Muslim community can't take full credit for what Muhammad Ali stood for. And it's very important to make this clear because if we have a Muhammad Ali lecture you will see people of the Islamic faith and non-Muslim faith, people of the social movement which was massive, the black social movement, the political stance that he took was very, very important before I believe his faith. I would argue his social stance and political stance played a much more significant role than his actual Islamic faith with regards to galvanizing people and resisting against the government. Obviously his stance on getting drafted into Vietnam was one and the black movement in America. So if his faith played a role in actually living up to such principles then by all means. And I think this is where Islam played a significant role for Muhammad Ali, the fact that these principles that he lived by irrespective of the repercussions, they are universal principles we believe in. Equality, human rights, dignity and empowerment for the individual. So they all play a significant role. So I think in short, sport is politics and politics is sport. Shall we start with the last one? Is that all right? So you're addressing that question to me? So just be a bit more specific. Is there an opportunity for Muslim players to finance organisations like ours? All right, yeah we actually have one. Many of you probably don't know what the Association of Muslim Footballers is, right? No? A couple? Very briefly, in 2012 we set up the organisation in order to act as a point of contact for all stakeholders in the game. So it's not a representative body for players. It's not like an alternative Muslim version of the PFA. So for example, over these years, I mean we have virtually zero funding, right? And we do not ask players for funding as a principle, right? So we'll get the media getting in touch with us when they require clarification of the story. We've had the PFA getting in touch with us in order to understand issues around a specific player. Some of you may remember Pape Ceasey, who was refusing to wear the betting longer sponsorship on his shirt. So the PFA would speak to us in order to understand the issue better. So whether you're fans, whether you're a club, a regulatory body, whether you're the media, we simply act as a point of contact in order to provide some clarification. And in terms of our public-facing side, all of that stuff happens like cloaking dagger underneath in the background. But all you'll see from us on our Twitter is really the promotion of some of the actions, some of the stories from Muslim players around the world which simply inspire. That's what they are. In order to answer your question, yes, players do get involved, but we have to be quite careful in how much we ask of players. There's a perception out there. I'm sure Adalan will confirm this. That players have loads of time on their hands that they don't really know what to do with it. And they have no commitments. It's like a holiday. It's the exact opposite. They have huge commitments. It's very, very difficult to lead a normal life as well. And it's actually very, very difficult for the players to generally trust people, too, because there's constantly people coming out of the woodwork saying, can you do this, and can you do that, and can you do this. And as a Muslim player, I think there's a feeling that you generally have to be a little bit more careful about who you're saying yes to. So yes, there is an opportunity for players to get involved and we try and push them as much as we can to get involved, but we're also respectful of their time. And we, as a principal, we do not accept money from players. I'm going to go backwards as well. My memory is going to fail me, probably. The question about Muslim women and the difficulties in the UK, obviously across the Arab world, Middle East and further East, the issues are interconnected, the political issues as well in a sport situation as well. But here in the UK, you know, the vast majority is attitudinal, attitudinal both in the community as well as in the industry as well. So we can't hide from the fact that within the community, you know, and it's not just the Muslim community, we are aware of that. It's a lot of communities that feel very negatively about women taking part in sports, particularly taking it as a career even. But I think that's changing. You know, even if you look at all the surveys that are done just for all women in sports, not just Muslim women or minority community women, you know, one of the biggest issues that women have when it comes to playing sport, for example, is they don't want to sweat. They don't want to sweat in front of people. They don't want to show off their body in front of people and all that kind of stuff. There's generally with women there's that kind of fear that they have when it comes to sport. That is changing. We've seen that this girl can campaign in England, although the diversity within that was quite frankly rubbish. But when it comes to Muslim women in the industry itself, there's just a huge lack of understanding of the needs of this community. It's amazing that the Muslim Women's Sport Foundation has been going for 15 years, 16 almost, and we are still dealing with the same issues, the governing bodies for sport. Generally in my experience, they often fear a lot, so they'll fear doing or saying the wrong thing. Sometimes it's more structurally there in the sense that, oh, why do we have to do it there? Let's just do it the way we've always done. So there's just a general lack of understanding and the work that we do, you know, I've got projects, a couple of projects going on in Bradford and Ilford right now with Muslim women in particular, looking at engaging them in Bambenton, in swimming, in running and all this kind of stuff and it just needs to be done so that people learn and then take that with them beyond. In terms of a career within sport, we just need more and more women coming out. So we've got Annie Zaidi, who's a fantastic coach from Coventry, doing some amazing stuff, winning awards. We've got Mariam Amatulla, who's a bike ride leader in Leicester. We've got Dana Abdul Karim, who's the first hijab wearing Muslim Women to Play Rounders for England. All this kind of stuff, we just need more and more of those role models to come out to women that ask me questions like, can I actually have a career in sport? The answer is clearly going to be yes. In terms of the point that, I want to call you Uncle, sorry, that you made and the question that you asked, for me personally, they're very similar. I think it's very easy to look at, for example Cricut, look at Mohen Ali Adil Rashid and other, for example, Asian men that have come in into the sport and say that we're okay. We've got these players coming through. It's very easy to do that and say we haven't got a diversity problem. The fact is we have. I work day in, day out in the sports industry and we've seen, for example, with the Kick It Out campaign that's been going for over 20 years, that it started off about racism, so it's anti-racism, but it's become even greater. It's now about hatred and prejudice right across the board. Sports as a whole has done a good job with dealing with discrimination, as you were talking about. But it's not the same as inclusion. Inclusion is about representation. It's about having people in the boardrooms in executive decision making positions, in coaching, in refereeing, in all of these areas of sport and we just do not see the diversity. Think about taking the Cricut as an example. Think about the number of Asians that play cricket up and down the country every single weekend. I can't for a second thing that there aren't more than two players that can make it into the England team. I also don't think that there's not one coach from the Asian community that can make it into the setup of cricket as a coach in that setup. Similarly in football we see now there's a real push to get more opportunities for black managers. A lot of ex players that are black, Jason Roberts, are really pushing for this because they are qualified to the rafters in terms of all the badges that they need. But they are not being given the opportunity because it's a closed system. I see that in football just to clarify although I'm on the FA council, I'm not an FA representative. I'm very much looking from the outside in and from my perspective there are barriers placed and I'll give one example within which sport, but a particular board which is dealing with women's that particular sport's women's arm. It's a new board and I've been pushing for them. It's an all white board at the moment. I've been pushing for them to have someone from an ethnic minority to go on to that board. Two people came forward. One was from an ethnic minority. One was another white woman and they chose the white woman even though the role of this person was to represent minority communities. So you can see straight away that there are serious issues about and by the way they were both as qualified so it wasn't to do with the race necessarily but the idea is how qualified is that individual to represent minority communities and that to me spoke volumes. So these kind of things happen all the time and inclusion is a longer journey. It's an attitudinal change and it's a change in the decision making levels and that needs to happen quickly because more and more people are getting frustrated. Would a Rooney Wall help in your opinion? Yes, something similar to that. I mean obviously the example of obviously the US and the NFL for those that aren't aware of the Rooney Wall it was brought in by one of the owners of an NFL franchise because of the lack of something like 80% of players in the NFL were black but they weren't being given the same opportunities in coaching. So this rule basically says that when a club puts interviews for a head coach or a coach position within the club they will interview at least one minority candidate. Whether that candidate gets the job or not is another issue but there's a whole process around feedback and all that kind of stuff. So in football I can talk from the football perspective because I'm only aware that it's happening there. We are actually talking about this right now and there's a similar rule that's going to hopefully come into place very soon which will basically do the same thing whereas candidates wouldn't have had the opportunity to even put themselves in front of a panel they will now have the opportunity to do that and work in progress but hopefully that will be happening soon. I wanted to get to the point of what I was trying to get to with that question which I would like to hear more on actually since you phrased it was about the extent to which the actions that Ariana took were clearly a political statement about an ongoing climate in the United States in which the African Americans feel that there is an unjust, broader system institutionalized racism. Now, when a player chooses to prostrate on the pitch is that in any way I'm not necessarily seeing that as a parallel action and I'm not seeing it as a political act as such. It's politicized by virtue of the climate but is it actually a form of resistance? Personally I don't think that the prostration or raising your hands to make a prayer is necessarily a political statement. I think as Imran said earlier I think people identify you in that way. If a Christian player comes on to the pitch I was at Anfield on Tuesday evening and Jordan Ibe came on and he drew the cross and he came on to the pitch and that's something that people just do. It's just a natural part of who they are but I think it's the current climate that gets blown out of proportion in the sense of that identity but I do agree with what you're saying. I think that there is a really positive role that can be played but the idea of it being enforced on someone is something I'm uncomfortable with. I think it has to be a personal choice that you do that. Now Ariana's case that was a very, very strong political statement that she made but one she felt that she had to do as a woman of colour that she was in and I think really ultimately the personal choice element is the greatest bit but we will as a community I think because of the climate again hold on to Muslim athletes that we see because it's kind of like it's a positive in our life. I think it's very easy for us to sit here and say Muslim football players both male and female should go out and take the baton of Islam, the flag of Islam to represent. Come on guys give them a break. You're talking about people who are in the industry because they've worked pretty much 90% of their life focused on this goal to become the best in their field. That is the main rationale. The main rationale isn't to go on BBC or Sky News or Fox News to talk about Islam and Sharia Law and Donald Trump's the Christopher Marx and comments. No, however this is very important. The social capacity which these players hold is immense and we've seen these in cases like Abtahaj, Muhammad Ali Dembaba for instance and there are many but that goes for Muslims, non-Muslims just people in the public eye people in the public domain I mean if you look at for instance Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo you have many kids let's say if Ronaldo decided to dye his hair red a lot of kids doing the same thing the next day because they look up to Cristiano Ronaldo they see him as a role model they want to try and imitate him as much as possible and if you see that capacity that you have as a potential ambassador, a diplomat you are carrying not only yourself Ronaldo is an iconic figure in Portugal not only in Real Madrid but he is sent on state visits to promote cultural tourism in Portugal likewise with David Beckham if you remember the Olympics who was part of the Olympic bid we had Prince William from the Royal Family we also had David Beckham Seb Coe for the Olympics so these are very much influential figures and public figures who can gorge that attention with the audience but to suggest that every single Muslim player to counter the anti-Muslim narrative is a bit far fetched I understand your point definitely and I agree with you in terms of the social capacity however even at social capacity if you have a Muslim player constantly talking about the beauty of Islam and Islamist peace every single day but they are sitting on the bench and not scoring goals give it a break, you are here we are paying you a salary to score goals and win trophies not to be some sort of preacher in addressing rooms I think they must in terms of advising them to be conscious of their actions by your means but I still feel that expecting them to become ambassadors and diplomats for the Islamic faith I mean it's a very tough position to be put in I don't think many of us here would be willing to put ourselves forward given the media attention that we have and especially sports people I remember the case where a PR guru was on radio and they asked them what is your advice on having sports people making political messages and he said from a PR perspective, from a marketing perspective it's all good when they do it hush hush down the corridor but when they are doing it on a podium taking a medal that is very very very bad for us because Nike and Adidas will come calling pull out their deals and it's bad for the nation if they are playing in the Olympics and there are many many repercussions here so I think again if you have that capacity you execute that capacity and are you willing to take on that responsibility as well Just to add to that because I think an important point has also been raised if you take the Muslim part out of it I mean the fact that these Muslim footballers for example go into prostration or they make a prayer before coming on or as Emre Jan was doing the other day making it while the penalties were going on it's one of those situations where I think even if they don't speak out in public about it the fact that they've done it sends a message in itself, it's a visual it's there so I think personally that's a positive thing but I think there's an important point in what you're saying as well because there's a discussion going on right now in the rugby world with the new England rugby captain nothing to do with the Muslim community obviously but he's renowned to be really dirty on the pitch really like I mean rugby is a contact sport in terms of the bands that he's had over the years and the discussion that's being had about that is well are sports people role models they're there to play rugby why are they made into sports role models in the sport and that brings out a huge another kind of question around these are sports people first female athletes, they're athletes they're not female athletes you know straight away that's the first foundation that you build on and then like I say it's that personal choice as to whether they want to go beyond that so I want to be frank because this is an honest discussion I think if we're here sitting thinking you know that Muslims have got it bad in sports and you know we're not doing as much etc that's very very very weak of us and we can't be naive what I'm saying I mean there are clearly there's two sides to the coin and I think what Rymla is saying from an institutional level 100% there is big massive discrimination and lack of opportunity be it on a coaching level even the sector itself football you know if you want to enter the sector you want to enter football you can you can do so without becoming a football player there are many other opportunities within this field but having said that I think there was a point about Mahrez and Vardy Vardy is talked about because he broke the rules pedestals that's why he's being talked about Mahrez I mean in terms of he's not being talked about as much I'm sorry but I think I don't know what your sources are but I see Mahrez being talked about quite a lot given the fact that irrespective of his faith or where he comes from I can say that from my experience now with regards to the community it's not a question which I'm addressing in my research but it's one often which I keep on getting asked that is why are we not seeing British Muslim, British Asian in particular actually not even British Muslim but British Asian players British Asian Muslim players is the second sub question in the Premier League now there are a number of reasons and I can't sit here and say it's because of one reason because there isn't one reason there are many many number of variables which we have to consider for those who say they don't make it because the e-curry the ridiculous and this is a by the way this is actually a legitimate but actually many many answers you'll come across people which will they all raise maybe I don't know if they happen in the FA boardroom but I hope not if they do then we understand why we're not getting the opportunities but we have that but we also have all Asian leagues and all African leagues and all Middle East all Turkish leagues and all Flandon for instance that doesn't help if you want to break into the scene so for instance the gentleman here who said I don't believe in a system I gave up I disagree I think you should carry on pick it up again and carry on and see where that takes you I think that actually of saying that we don't believe in a system is quite defeatist already so if you're setting up an argument to say that you know we're not getting opportunities but then there's one presented to you and you're saying I don't want to take it on I mean football players didn't get where they are today because they just woke up one they got lucky there is some element of luck but it's a lot of hard work as well so I think with respect to the Muslim community I think there needs to be work done in terms of playing in all county leagues that's where you get the Scouts in the FA seeing you and actually you have Scouts from the FA picking you up your name gets called this agent speaks to this agent then you're exposing yourself much better now the point made by I think it's Amar very valid point and it goes back to the idea of public diplomacy in many ways having that social capacity as an individual, as a governing body or as a nation state does not mean you're going to automatically achieve positive recognition or positive public perception on the contrary it's a swinging pendulum if you get it wrong it's really really bad it's really really bad in the case of Russia for instance Brazil recently we saw what happened in FIFA the amount of people protesting there were people who are not seeing this equal distribution the wealth distribution was discriminatory in many ways and I think it's very important that we have this nuanced argument from a top level also from a bottom level otherwise if we already have this attitude we're not going to have that player who's going to be playing for England and winning the World Cup as an Asian the only Asian male on the panel who aspired to be a footballer still do actually I'm 39 but not giving up hope just yet I'd like to echo some of the words I'd like to disagree so we could have a big scrap up here but we're just going to agree there's lots of Asian players who are currently being scouted my son being one of them a little while back he was released at the age of eight by Manchester United as a Liverpool fan that was interesting he didn't have to wear the kit it was just a red top without the badge West Brom currently have three brothers who are on their books actually one's just moved to Peterborough who was playing in the Indian Premier League and he moved back to Peterborough the other two are at West Brom Liverpool have the Indian origin player Yolanda I think it is on the book football is a sport and it makes no commercial sense whatsoever to discriminate even if you have it within you to discriminate if you're going to find an Indian origin player can you imagine how many shirts you're going to sell it's a huge commercial opportunity so I can't see that I've got to agree on the Maras thing as well okay fine we understand the back story of Vardy but he's British weirdly if I'm thinking about who's back story I'd want to hear about more me personally Maras because I think in football terms I've watched non-league I've watched division 2 Premier League I identify with that whole journey that's more interesting to me than okay maybe Maras has come from another country and he was knocking about on the streets and then somebody picked him up and he made it through you know so maybe it's just the case that people are just more interested in the back story of of Vardy I've completely forgotten the other questions there was one about British players vs foreign players and then another one about the Muslim Tyson Fury which is quite an image yeah I was trying to think do we have anything close to a Muslim Tyson Fury at the moment yeah we do but I'm not going to say his name go on give us the initials oh right okay do people still identify Mike Tyson as as a Muslim look he does doesn't he have a bit of a reformation anyway he is what he is yeah just I don't know it's interesting again I'm sorry I have to agree with the whole Vardy and Maras situation I think what's more interesting for me is actually in terms of hype and forgetting having memories that are very short in terms of Vardy's journey more recently in terms of some of the incidents that he was involved with everyone's forgotten about that that's more interesting for me than the Maras Vardy thing but yeah just the two points that were made at the top I think as I said earlier on certainly with female Muslim athletes one of the biggest issues is we are judged by our outer form and Insania's case and that's both within our community and outside of it so Insania's case obviously within the community it was a case of she's not covering that's her personal choice but you're right that has a negative impact in terms of particularly Indian young girls growing up and whether that's an acceptable acceptable thing for them I think we're actually seeing a real movement for Muslim women in sport right now but that movement's coming from within themselves so here in the UK we have the British Atomweight Mu-Tai champion who I'm pretty sure most people haven't heard of Rukastana Begham nobody really talks about her she doesn't cover but she's at the same time she recognises that young Muslim girls need a role model to look up to and they also need clothing that's appropriate for them if they choose to cover she's just designed her own sports hijab so for her she can still be positively promoting sports for young Muslim girls even though she doesn't cover herself and also talks quite openly about the fact that she hid the fact that she was training in Mu-Tai kickboxing for a number of years from her family now they're on board but she had to go through that journey herself so I think that's a natural part of a female Muslim athlete's journey but I mentioned Ibtzaharj earlier on he's very open about her identity and what it means to her you've also got the likes of Indira Caljo, a Bosnian American Bilqis Abdul Qadir played ball with the president I think with Obama actually but the two of them together African American and Bosnian American have taken on Feeba, the basketball version of FIFA because they too have banned the hijab and they want to play internationally and they can't because the hijab's been banned you've got Qulsom Abdullah who's a Pakistani American weightlifter who wanted to wear the hijab whilst weightlifting but the international weightlifting Federation wouldn't let her so she had to take them on as you can see there's constantly barriers that Muslim women are having to overcome in particular the ones that do cover I think in terms of the idea of the Asians in not just in football but I think right across sport it's not just a football problem it's a problem I mentioned quicker earlier on but it's right across the board we talked about the movement for women in sport if I can be frank it's for white women in sport if you look at the England women's cricket team the England women's football team the England women's rugby team the world cup winners if you look at all of that it's a particular demographic so women's sport is very behind when it comes to diversity but on the male side I think in terms of participation from grass roots through to amateur semi pro level you've got a good representation there but like almost said if you don't actually integrate into the mainstream leagues you're not going to get talent spotted I know in West Ham that area I've spoken to different groups and some people say it's institutional racism they just don't want our people it's because we eat curry that we're not going to be fit enough and those stereotypes do actually exist and on the other hand you've got people that run for young particularly Bengoli kids who say that the parents just aren't committed enough to keep driving them to training or that kind of stuff so the argument is to fold we don't see enough we see more and more black players British black players coming through in football therefore parents that have black children will say my child can also do that right now we don't have enough British born Muslim athletes Asian athletes across the UK and therefore parents cannot see that that is a realistic career for their child so it is a two fold argument and that's the reality of the situation and I think that it's going to take a number of years before that changes another round of questions I just had it on my two pennies on the Vardy Meyers conversation I'm up on the platform I'm allowed Meyers has missed two pennies in last week they would be top of the league by four points if Meyers had scored there let me start with Mohammed's question so the question on grassroots and how the impact of these actions on a grassroots level if you remember there was a documentary on the Muslim Premier League on BBC and I believe it was Colin Murray who was the narrator and actually picked the example of kids in a local park in Newcastle dropping to their knees and doing a prostration so we've seen this become part of popular culture which is fascinating because we've seen this not only people in real life doing it but we also see this in computer games so for those of you who are football fanatics and have a copy of the FIFA game you can actually make the player prostrate after scoring a goal that was non-existent five years ago so you can see here the appropriation and the cultural appropriation to popular culture that we see many kids talking about prostration we see many kids doing it we see many people raising their hand before a game I'll be honest when I was growing up and playing football I actually used to put my collar up like Cantona and everyone I think growing up in the 80s and 90s would remember before doing any especially a penalty kick it was always the collar up so that was part of popular culture the king, you know, King Eric and we see the same today we see the same today and that is very important we can't measure it in terms of the impact because it's quite soft the social capacity that one has they have a very short window in terms of transferring that and most of the time it's after scoring a goal for instance if you can imagine Dembarbar scoring a goal after he concedes his own goal most of the fans will be booing him I mean otherwise there'll be something wrong that comes at a moment of success of winning and I think in terms of theory we have Pierre Bordeaux who talks about social capacity and he actually mentions that there is a short window here for the ability to be recognised to achieve recognition so if you're trying to impose recognition on others without actually achieving recognition then you don't have the ability you don't have the social capacity to do so so I think that has played a significant role in maybe initiating a conversation and I think that goes the same thing with football players football players, you know there's a case I won't mention the name where a child was asked to pray by a football player and only after the football player told the child you should listen to your uncle I believe it was, you should pray the kid started to pray so there is they're more receptive in this particular case to hear from a role model, they look at him and say wow this is a massive player I should listen to him and there's a thin line here between taking the words of a football player and everything that a football player says and believing in that I think that the key connection here is the initiating the conversation and then introducing them to someone of knowledge about their faith for instance and this is where they have that impact on a grassroots level and the Qatar question you're right, it's the first Muslim majority country that will be hosting the World Cup the issue that Muslims are not involved in sports I think that is a question we can easily you know, defragmentate and actually look at the case of Manchester City if you look at the El Classico one of the biggest derbies on this planet between Real Madrid and Barcelona what are the two main things that really come to your face Qatar Airways and Flight Emirates who would have thought you would see two global multinational corporations like Qatar Airways and Flight Emirates sponsoring El Classico and that says a lot in terms of the power of media the power of business and the fact that we have millions if not billions of pounds being spent in a sporting industry by not only the Qatari family which we see through investing in PSG which they own Paris Air Jamun but they also have as I mentioned Qatar Airways sponsoring Barcelona we have the Emirati family the ruling family and Abu Dhabi actually have bought and funding Manchester City Football Club and they are sponsored by Etihad Airways Arsenal and Flight Emirates again their stadium is called the Emirates Stadium so even language is very important here when we appropriate language as well to the idea of these power structures you know, when a commentator says welcome to the Etihad Stadium welcome to the Emirates Stadium it plays a magnificent role in terms of the power of sport and the globalization of sport and even with the context of language we refer back to Muslim women why is the Premier League for women called the Women's Premier League and the male Premier League is called the Premier League and why is the FA called the FA not the English FA so even with language a very subtle appropriation with language as well that how we the FIFA Women's World Cup not the FIFA World Cup as well so it's sort of like you're not quite there yet you don't meet the elite or tournament you're still women, you don't partake as much as good as us however I would argue if you wanted a role model who can beat, come back any stereotype with Islam in particular I would say someone like Annie Zaidi does a hell of a lot more than all the male football players most of the football players put together because the hijab she wears is already politicized whether she likes it or not whether she actually steps on the football pitch or not and the idea of symbolic power again when we talk about this in terms of prostrating Demba Baoli does that within 10 seconds Annie Zaidi has the headscarf for her football session so her impact is far far greater than Demba Baoli I would argue I think just in terms of the point that you made back there I mean I'm not sure if I understand it fully so correct me if I'm wrong but there are a number of Asian players British Asian players that are in kind of the semi pro level and they don't make it through to you know the pro level and for me there's got to be an issue there because again I can't for a second believe that there's not at least one that's good enough to make it through I think really from my perspective I mean you raised a good point there around the whole women's in America they've got something a legislation called Title IX which basically allows which enforces I guess because it's a legislation that you have to split the funding that goes into everything that goes into women's sport and men's sport equally and what that's actually resulted in in terms of research that's come out of that is that people don't refer to it as women's soccer or men's soccer they just refer to it as soccer so I think wording is really important in terms of how we go forward with that, yeah That also speaks to the commercial drivers of this you know you can legislate or regulate certain aspects of any industry, any governance structure and to encourage spending in sort of a near liberal management lecture but if you have that imperative and it's enforceable by law in this case or in the case of the NFL the equal distribution of funds or in terms of the NCAA in American college sport, they are these are bodies that get that, the funding is equitable so to speak although obviously certain sports have more funds than others and one of the more interesting things there in the terms of discrimination and non-inclusion is the biggest American college sport is American football which is just a male sport you know the you know final four weekend women's basketball men's basketball just basketball but actually the single biggest driver of that industry that allows men's and women's basketball or volleyball or other soccer to take place is a male only sport there's an inherent tension there one is a facilitator of another we're happy to reconcile that on a gender basis is that something that can be reconciled in other aspects of identity in this regard. On that point the idea of revenue I think is important if you look at the Halal market goods industry globally it stands at the moment over $500 billion per year so as that market industry for Halal goods we're talking about non-alcoholic beverages etc etc and Halal food the reason why I bring that up is because you look at the case of formula one in Bahrain for instance the champagne ceremony that is actually non-alcoholic but it may appear it is actually alcoholic beverage but it isn't so for sure it seems like it was just a standard but we must appease the Bahrain government because they are investing they are sponsoring the formula one bringing into onto their shores so it's important that the Muslim woman even is seen as a body so a body where they can actually see as a a potential commercial asset and the reason why I mention is because the hijab market for instance believe you me give it maybe a few years and Nike will turn up and say here's a sports hijab because we've seen a market the Halal goods market at over $500 billion per year $500 billion per year we can infiltrate that sort of market and then have the Muslim woman pretty much seen as a body it is anyway done by if we look at female athletes if you look at walking to a Nike store 20 years ago you want to see a women's department as big as it is today for instance we have these new shoes, new colours et cetera and specific gear for females and males and now we're seeing that also that appropriation for the Muslim woman not I would argue not on a equality basis but more on a commercial basis for multinational corporations of course they see that as an incentive I think there's no hiding away from it at the end of the day sport is business and I mean I think it was about 7-8 years ago Speedo actually came up to us to trial their workinis because they'd just come out in Australia and they wanted to get in on the market so that kind of stuff there I mean the number of sports that are out there, the number of modest clothing as they call it it's a growing business but I think it also speaks back to the politicisation of sport as well actually and I remember back during the Olympics when there was the here in London when there was this huge movement to force all the countries every single countries must have a female representative and clearly it went straight to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain I think it was the two countries that were refusing to send female athletes and in the end I can certainly remember from the Saudi side we had a Judoca and a runner from America actually that had links to Saudi that ended up being part of the team but what I found interesting was a research piece that was done about a year or two ago about the coverage of female Muslim athletes and how it again it relates back to this obsession that the world seems to have with the outer form of a Muslim woman whether she covers or not and what that means on the sports field so this piece of research highlights all of that stuff and it talks about how female athletes particularly Muslim athletes from Russia female athletes from Russia that do gymnastics they didn't cover they weren't talked about in any other form their ability in their field of play whatever it was but when it came to the likes of Sarah Ather and others that were there from Saudi etc it was all about the fact that they were covered the fact that there was a whole argument of whether the Judoca would be able to actually compete because they weren't allowing her to wear the hijab and then there was this whole kind of political process what I found even more interesting was not every country actually sent a woman there were countries that were non Muslim countries that didn't send female athletes but nobody highlighted that and I think that just comes back to the narrative that is constantly given about Muslims and Muslim countries and how it is politicised and at the end of the day that's the narrative that's going to be then we just need to use our power and counter that narrative in the best way possible personally I believe through our athletes the like of Annie I agree her being out there on the grass roots as Mo was saying earlier on being out there on the grass roots level and the racism, these anti Muslim hatred that she's had to deal with and it's just her pure passion for coaching that has pulled her through she's stood up to it all and she's sent out an even more positive message that anyone else can if they just preached about Islam by just being there and sticking it out and just being an amazing coach Thank you, well I think on that note we're going to thank you all here on the panel for your contribution so if you could join me, thank you very much