Iran’s strict Islamic authorities on Wednesday night allowed women to attend a men’s soccer game after decades of prohibiting what one religious scholar called the “vulgarity” of such an act.
Iranian women have long been banned from men’s soccer matches in the Islamic Republic based at least partly on the theory females should not hear fans swear or see men in such scanty attire as shorts and t-shirts.
AP reports videos posted on social media late Wednesday show women inside the stadium as the national league game between Esteghlal FC, the second most popular team in Iran, and Mes-e Kerman took to the field for their contest.
Images from the event show women waving blue team flags of Esteghlal and cheering from their seats, in a special area designated for 500 women at the 100,000-seat stadium.
FIFA has demanded Iran provide assurances that women will be allowed to attend 2022 World Cup qualifiers even as controversy raged over the composition of the country’s female team and the large amount of men playing as they awaited sex change surgery.
In 2019 and for the first time after decades, for the Asian Champions League final, hundreds of Iranian women were allowed to watch Persepolis play Kashima Antlers of Japan in Tehran.
However, in March, Iranian authorities blocked women from attending the country’s last 2022 World Cup soccer qualifying match between Iran and Lebanon in the holy city of Mashhad, the AP report sets out.
Iranian soccer female fans wearing hats and blue flags as they wait to enter the Azadi (Freedom) stadium in western Tehran for watching a soccer match between Esteghlal F.C. and Mes Kerman, August 25, 2022.(Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
At the time, Iranian media said 12,500 tickets were sold online, of which 2,000 had been reserved for women.
As Breitbart News reported, in 2018 female football fans donned fake beards, mustaches and wigs to sneak into a major soccer match in Iran in defiance of the country’s strict Islamic codes of conduct.
Female football fans donned fake beards, mustaches and wigs in 2018 to sneak into a major soccer match in Iran in defiance of a government ban on female spectators. (Instagram)
Prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979, women were allowed to attend sporting events.
But Ahmad Alamolhoda, an influential Friday prayer leader in Mashhad who was appointed by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reportedly said he is against the presence of women as spectators in men’s sports competitions.
The Islamic religious expert called it a “vulgarity.”