{"id":11611,"date":"2017-06-06T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/06\/06\/short-haired-girl-mistaken-for-boy-barred-from-soccer-tournament-finals\/"},"modified":"2017-06-06T20:35:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T20:35:00","slug":"short-haired-girl-mistaken-for-boy-barred-from-soccer-tournament-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/short-haired-girl-mistaken-for-boy-barred-from-soccer-tournament-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-Haired Girl Mistaken For Boy, Barred From Soccer Tournament Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amy Held<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Milagros “Mili” Hernandez, 8, plays soccer in Ohama, Neb. Her team was disqualified from the final round of a tournament because somebody had complained to organizers that there was a boy on the team.<\/p>\n


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\n WOWT\/Screenshot by NPR
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Milagros “Mili” Hernandez loves soccer, and she’s good at it. Really good. At age 8, the short-haired Nebraska girl plays on an Omaha club team with 11-year-olds.<\/p>\n

But on Sunday, Mili’s dad, Gerardo Hernandez, found out his daughter’s girls’ team had been disqualified from the finals of a Springfield tournament, set for that day. The Azzuri-Cachorros Chicas couldn’t play, The Washington Post reports<\/a>. Somebody had complained that there was a boy on the team.<\/p>\n

“They only did it because I look like a boy,” Mili told<\/a> WOWT 6 News.<\/p>\n

Hernandez figured the mistake would be easily rectified. He took his daughter, along with her insurance card listing her gender as female, to the tournament. But when he got there, “They didn’t even want to take it,” he told the<\/em> Post,<\/em> “They told us the thing was decided.”<\/p>\n

“Just because I look like a boy doesn’t mean I am a boy,” Mili said to WOWT.<\/p>\n

But the tournament organizers said Mili’s looks did not influence their decision. Rather, it was a mistake on her registration form.<\/p>\n