AFLW star Haneen Zreika announces exciting baby news and shares heartwarming footage of her telling her GWS teammates
AFLW player Haneen Zreika and her husband Ozzy are expecting their first child.
The Greater Western Sydney Giants star, 26, recently revealed the exciting news to her teammates and shared a heartwarming clip of the moment on social media.
In the footage, Haneen was seen arriving late to a team meeting before telling her fellow players the shock reason for her delay.
'Guys, I'm alive! I haven't been lying, I have been really sick... It's because I am pregnant,' Haneen told her teammates.
The GWS squad were then seen jumping up in excitement as the whole team ran up to hug Haneen and congratulate her on the exciting news.
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Haneen then revealed her due date as her squad cheered her on: 'It's a November baby. Thanks guys.'
It is the first child for Haneen, who has played for Greater Western Sydney since 2018.
Haneen is one of the most outspoken players in the league and made headlines in October 2022 when she pulled out of the AFLW's league's pride round due to religious beliefs - the second time she has done so.
The Muslim athlete said she would not be playing in the club's fixture against Hawthorn on October 16 in Sydney, where the side would be wearing specially-designed pride jumpers.
The round celebrates and honours the LGBTQI+ community, which is heavily interlaced with the league given the amount of gay players.
She also sparked backlash in January that year when she made the same decision to pull out of the Giants fixture - and that outrage appears to have reared its ugly head again.
Haneen said she felt she had a 'responsibility to represent her faith' during pride round.
For her, this meant not wearing the rainbow jersey GWS designed for the round - and she revealed she felt like an 'outsider' when the AFL rejected her proposal to just wear the normal strip.
In the footage, Haneen was seen arriving late to a team meeting before telling her fellow players the shock reason for her delay
'I didn't want to make a big deal of it, until the AFL rejected me from wearing a normal jersey. That was a shock to me,' the speedy midfielder said in the Disney+ AFLW documentary 'Fearless', which was released at the start of the season.
'I love what the AFL do and the way they include everyone, but you can't have a round where you include people but exclude someone that it impacts their faith.'
'I really feel like an outsider, like, "no mate, you're not part of us",' Haneenadded.
Haneen has a number of gay teammates, including captain Alicia Eva, Katherine Smith and Pepa Randall; and insists she does not 'judge the girls' despite differing beliefs.
'They can be whatever they want. I still love and respect them and they're still my mates,' she said in the documentary series.
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