BFF-27 Vatican cancels women’s match after anti-abortion protest

233

ZCZC

BFF-27

VATICAN-FBL-WOMEN-PROTEST-AUSTRIA

Vatican cancels women’s match after anti-abortion protest

VIENNA, June 23, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The Vatican called off a friendly
football match involving its new women’s team in Vienna over the weekend
after several Austrian players protested the church’s anti-abortion stance.

The game between the Vatican side founded this year and a Vienna outfit was
cancelled Saturday when several Austrians lifted their shirts to reveal pro-
choice messages painted on their stomachs and backs when the anthems were
played before kick-off, media reports said.

“The game was called off because we are here for the sport, and not for
political or other messages”, public broadcaster ORF quoted Danilo Zennaro, a
representative of the Vatican sports association, as saying.

A player from the Austrian capital’s Mariahilf women’s team said they
hadn’t expected the protest action to lead to the game to be scrapped.

The Vatican’s Vienna representative could not immediately be reached on
Sunday for comment.

The Vatican women’s team was formed earlier this year, more than three
decades after the men’s side.

Austrian media said the Vienna clash was supposed to be the Vatican women’s
first international tie.

BSS/AFP/RY/1645 hrs