From The Daily Mail:
Women handball players in Spain are up in arms over a ‘sexist’ rule that stipulates that their midriffs must be exposed while playing on sand.
European Handball Federation regulations also insist that bikini tops and bottoms should have a maximum width of 10 centimetres. The rules for male players are far less rigorous, with players allowed to wear clothing that is ‘loose and long’...
“[It] infringes on principles of equality, it’s sexist and it puts the appearance of the players before their technical capabilities,” Izaskun Bilbao, Member of the European Parliament for the Basque Nationalist Party said.
The Basque Women’s Institute told the Spanish edition of Huffington Post that the rule seemed to be in place ‘so that girls’ bodies lure people to the sport’. Spain’s main sports council slammed the rules as ‘sexist’.
The row flared up after the Spanish Handball Federation was told last weekend that 21 of 22 women’s teams playing in a tournament in Cantabria were wearing team kits that covered up the body too much, according to The Leader.