The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Iranian women freely attend match for first time in decades
TEHRAN, IRAN — Flag-draped Iranian women watched a FIFA soccer match from inside a Tehran stadium Thursday, the first time they’ve been freely allowed into a stadium in decades.
The 2022 World Cup qualifier between Team Melli and Cambodia at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium marks a decades-long push by Iranian women to be able to watch matches, something hard-liners in Iran’s Shiite theocracy to this day still oppose.
Iran allocated only 4,000 tickets for women in a stadium that seats about 80,000, keeping them separated from men and under the protection of female police officers.
That’s even though face-painted Iranian women have cheered for their team abroad for years despite the 1981 ban that followed the country’s Islamic Revolution.
“We are so happy that finally we got the chance to go to the stadium. It’s an extraordinary feeling,” said Zahra Pashaei, a 29-year-old nurse who has only known soccer games from television. “At least for me, 22 or 23 years of longing and regret lies behind this.”
Iran scored in the game’s fifth minute with a long shot by midfielder Ahmad Nourollahi. On Iran’s conservatively controlled state television, which carried the match live, a shot of the cheering crowd included ecstatic women spectators.
They followed with another goal in the 10th minute.
While Iran for years has considered letting women into soccer matches, the decision to allow them in Thursday came as part of intense pressure from FIFA, the world body governing the sport.
Iran faced a potential ban if it didn’t allow women into the match.
That pressure has grown with FIFA and Iran’s soccer-loving public since September, when an Iranian woman detained for dressing as a man to sneak into a soccer stadium to watch a match died after setting herself on fire upon learning she learned she could spend six months in prison.
The self-immolation death of 29-year-old Sahar Khodayari, who became known as the “Blue Girl” for her love of the Iranian team Esteghlal, shocked Iranian officials and the public, becoming an immediate hashtag trend across social media in the Islamic Republic.
Iran is the world’s last nation to bar women from soccer matches. Saudi Arabia recently began allowing women into soccer matches in the kingdom.
Hard-liners and traditional Shiite clerics, citing their interpretation of Islamic law, believe in segregating men and women at public events, as well as keeping women out of men’s sports
They’ve maintained tight control on social mores in the times since the Islamic Revolution, which saw women required to cover their hair and also wear the black, all-encompassing chador while working in government jobs.
The effort to allow women back into stadiums has gone through fits and starts since the revolution. Iran even barred a woman from holding a sign for the country when it attended its first Summer Olympics in 1988 in South Korea.