This Soccer Player Wanted to Wear Her Hijab on the Field. France Wouldn’t Let Her.

During Ramadan, as her family fasted and prayed, Lina Boussaha, a professional soccer player, eagerly tore open a package in her bedroom in France. Inside were two head scarves she had ordered, labeled Nike, and marketed as a symbol of empowerment for Muslim women in sports.

Ms. Boussaha, 25, turned pro when she was 17. Her parents are Algerian, she grew up in one of Paris’s poorest suburbs, and until that Ramadan, in 2022, had never worn a hijab outside prayers. She usually wore her heavy curls in a high ponytail.

But she had recently decided she wanted to wear a hijab regularly, even during games. And that decision put her on a journey that eventually took her from France to start her career anew in the Middle East.

It also gave her a chance to unite her religious beliefs with her secular pursuit of soccer.

“It is with great pride that I announce that I am wearing the veil (hijab),” Ms. Boussaha wrote on her Instagram account that night. “My religion, my inner peace, and my spirituality are my priorities, and these come before my worldly pleasures like football & my career as a professional player. Nothing prevents doing both, even if (here in France), it remains complicated.”

As she recalled writing those words, she said in an interview in a cafe near her childhood home in Seine-Saint-Denis, a wave of relief washed over her.

“Soccer is not just a game for me,” she said. “It’s a part of my soul.”