The football match which opposed this Thursday in Tehran (Iran) the national team to Russia was watched by hundreds of women present in the stands. For the first time in more than a year, the government had indeed authorized female supporters to enter a football stadium. They were several hundred to have made the trip to attend the friendly meeting.
The purchase of tickets authorized but not the presence at the stadium
The last international football match to which Iranian women had the right to attend dated back to January 2022. It was a meeting between the national team and Iraq, counting for the qualification for the World Cup. Two months later, women were allowed to buy tickets for a match between Iran and Lebanon played in Mashhad (Iran). However, access to the stadium had been forbidden to them before the match.
“Mismanagement” was at the time mentioned to explain the ban on entering the sports arena. Before January 2022, the country’s authorities had banned the presence of women in stadiums for almost three years. Over the past 40 years, the Iranian regime has mostly refused to allow female spectators to attend football matches.