A top soccer player who once played on the Iranian women’s national team says she has been barred from ever returning to the squad or from landing a job as a coach after government officials found out she played in an exhibition game while not wearing a hijab — during a trip outside the country — and played alongside male players. In an interview with Masih Alinejad of the My Stealthy Freedom Facebook page, longtime player Shiva Amini said she was visiting Switzerland and Italy and “playing in friendly games” when the offense occurred. An innocuous photo snapped in Zurich that she posted on Instagram showed her heading a soccer ball and in the image, no veil was covering her hair and she was wearing shorts, another offense in the eyes of officials at the Iranian Futsal Federation, which oversees the women’s team. She’s been banned from playing or coaching in Iran’s domestic league.

They “were not even official games where I had to represent the Islamic Republic,” Amini told Alinejad. “However, it seems that those games drew the ire of the officials within the Islamic Republic for two reasons. First of all, I happened to be unveiled and was wearing shorts. Secondly, I was playing with boys in a team. The officials of the Iranian Futsal Federation told me, “When you are a member of an official team, you do not have the right to play without the veil even in non-official games abroad. We are living in Islamic country. Why did you have to play with boys? You would have been disqualified from the team even if you had played with boys wearing a veil in Iran as well.” Amini has devoted the last 13 years of life to her soccer career, four years of which she was a member of the national women’s team.