A female Iranian football has been kicked out of the national team for playing without a hijab while on a personal trip to Switzerland.

Shiva Amini was on holiday when she took part in a kick-about with a group of men and officials from the Iranian Futsal Federation waded through her social media accounts to find a picture of her playing in a pair of shorts and without a headscarf.

The veil has been a mandatory dress requirement for women in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and officials suspended her from the national team.

Shiva Amini was on holiday in Switzerland when she decided to take part in a kick-about with a group of men

The Iranian international dribbling up the left wing during a friendly game in Switzerland

The Iranian authorities have now banned her from playing for the national team because she played with men without a hijab and whilst wearing a pair of shorts

Amini takes off her veil to speak to an Iranian activist on the decision to ban her from the sport

Speaking out against the decision, the footballer said sport is more important than any veil.

'The hijab should be an unimportant issue for us, the female players,' she said.

'However for the officials of the country, it seems to be a deal-breaker.

'I received a note from the federation to say not only had I played without a veil, but also I dared to play with boys.

'So I was disqualified and I was removed from the national team.

'I was told this behaviour would cause me a lot of headaches at home.'

She also hit out at certain individuals who had previously supported her and the team.

She said people were on their side when they were winning medals and matches, but that they had turned their back on her and the squad by not coming out to criticise the decision.

'Silence is betrayal of ourselves,' Amini said.

The athlete talked to Iranian journalist Masig Alinejad, an activist behind My Stealthy Freedom, and said: 'They were not even official games where I had to represent the Islamic Republic.

'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 an 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".'

The Iranian footballer wearing the veil adapted for sport which has to be work according to law

Iranian women's national soccer team walk to the pitch before withdrawing from their qualifying match against Jordan for the 2012 London Olympic Games in Amman on June 3, 2011

In February, two promising chess-playing siblings were banned from tournaments in Iran after the sister failed to wear a hijab and her brother played an Israeli.

Dorsa and Borna Derakhshani, two of the country's leading youth chess players, were told they can no longer be part of the national team.

Dorsa, an 18-year-old student in Spain, was banned after she did not wear a head covering during the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival earlier this year.

Her 15-year-old brother, Borna, who still lives in Iran, was told he couldn't compete after playing a match against Israeli chess player Alexander Husman during the same tournament.

An Iran fan in Germany where her country was competing in the FIFA World Cup 2006

A month later, Iran has banned some of its female competitors from billiard competitions for a year for violating the Islamic codes of conduct at a tournament in China.

The Disciplinary Committee of Bowling, Billiard and Boxing Federation did not reveal the nature of the alleged offences, saying it would name the transgressors later.

'Women sent to China Open (billiard) competitions will be banned from all domestic and foreign competitions for one year for violating the Islamic code,' it said.

Back in 2012, FIFA banned Iranian women from competing in the Olympics, saying headscarves would be a safety issue during games.

It was eventually lifted two years later.

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has required women to wear the Islamic headscarf in public.

The Islamic code also forbids women touching, dancing or singing with men outside their families.

Women are only allowed to show their face, hands and feet in public and are supposed to wear only modest colours.

Over the years, however, women have pushed back the boundaries of the law, with many wearing loose, brightly coloured headscarves far back on their heads.