Who scored when Iran hand-selected women for historic soccer audience?
For some Iranians, the visible female audience at a recent soccer match at Tehran's Azadi stadium was a meaningful win in a long war over allowing women to attend public soccer matches, but others are frustrated at what they consider a publicity stunt.
The Iranian soccer team Persepolis battled it out against Japan’s Kashima Antlers in the Asian Champions League in Tehran Nov. 10. But before the referee announced the start of the game, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who had traveled to Iran to watch the match, had a request. Infantino asked to be shown that Iranian women had been allowed into the Azadi stadium to watch.
To fulfill his request, Mehdi Taj, the president of the Iranian Football Federation, showed both Infantino and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President Sheikh Salman a group of about a thousand women in the stadium — separated by fencing on both sides from their male counterparts.
But Infantino was not satisfied and asked Taj to provide a closer shot of where the women were sitting. In published footage, the male spectators can be heard shouting “It’s a lie. It’s a lie,” protesting the lack of ticket sales to women and their pre-selected presence in the stadium. Not all women who wanted to watch were allowed to enter — only those who were handpicked by the Iranian Football Federation were present.
Sahar Toloui, a journalist for Iran’s daily Shargh, told Al-Monitor, “I’ve been a Persepolis fan and a soccer fan since I was a child. Both my mother and grandmother went to stadiums before the revolution. But I have not gone yet.”
