vantaa finland finlands football association has begun offering a free sports hijab to any player who wants one in a move designed to attract a greater diversity of players into the sportso far the fa has distributed dozens of the headscarves which are made out of technical stretchy fabric heidi pihlaja head of development of women and girls football told afpin finland its been really hard to get girls of immigrant backgrounds into football clubs pihlaja saidso we wanted to start this initiative to welcome everyone regardless of your religion and whether you want to use a scarf or notit doesnt flap around as much as normal and you dont need to tuck it into your shirt 13yearold nasro bahnaan hulbade told afp during a training session at her club vjs in vantaa in the finnish capitalits easier to run in it said her teammate kamila nuhthe girls have been playing for one and two years respectively but said they were happy and grateful to find out from their parents about the free headscarvespihlaja said that cultural issues and cost rather than the headscarves themselves were often the main obstacles to girls and women from immigrant communities taking up the sportbut offering the hijabs has a symbolic importance to making the sport more accessible she saidalthough the response has mainly been really positive the scheme has also received criticism from people saying it demeans women or is bringing religion to the gamea 2018 pew research centre comparison found that finland housed the strongest antimuslim attitudes out of 15 countries while the farright finns party is predicted to make record gains in the countrys local elections later this monthwe support every womens right to choose themselves whether they use a scarf or not pihlaja said in response to the criticismwhere they want to use it we want to show that they are welcome and that the headscarf isnt an obstacleyet although the fas announcement prompted a flurry of negative comments on social media the hijab scheme has not become a major talking point in the country of 55 million people one of europes most homogenous nations according to official statisticsfinlands widespread antiimmigrant sentiment is currently less apparent in the footballing arena where the mens national team which comprises a number of foreignbackground players enjoys nearuniversal supportthis month finland will make its debut appearance at the european championships while the countrys womens team has also for the first time made the euro 2021in another move to boost equality finlands fa in 2019 removed the word women from the title of its top female competitive division renaming it the national leagueit also announced equal pay and bonuses for male and female players in the national teamwearing her vjs kit the same colour red as that of her beloved liverpool kamila nuh said she loves football and im not planning on stopping any time soonthere still arent that many female players in finland she admits but i want to be