Women welcome for the first time in thirty years at Iranian football match

For the first time in over thirty years, women have been able to watch a match of the Iranian national team in the stadium. According to the Iranian news agency Isna, a selected group of about a hundred women attended the practice match with Bolivia in the Azadi Stadium in the capital Tehran.

Among the women were the partners of the players, employees of the Iranian Football Association and players of the women’s team of Iran.

“The encouragement of the women was very interesting,” said the Portuguese national coach of Iran Carlos Quiroz after the 2-1 victory of his team. According to him, this could indicate “the beginning of a new era in Iran”. The presence of women in the stadium was also positively received in the Iranian media.

At the World Cup in Russia, women were allowed to watch Iran’s matches on screens in the stadium in Tehran. For many Iranians the stadium ban for women is no longer of this time and even the government wants to get rid of it, but the conservative religious authorities stick to the ban.