Iran, women and the ongoing struggle for football 'freedom'

In December 2023, the presence of 3,000 women at the Tehran derby between Persepolis and Esteghlal seemed to indicate progress in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Female fans had been banned from attending men’s matches across the country since 1981, two years after the nation’s Islamic Revolution. For more than four decades, female protestors and campaigners tried to circumvent the ban — often by dressing up as men. The state responded with arrests, beatings and forced exiles.

Despite women returning to some football stadiums in restricted numbers, they are still not universally allowed to attend matches in Iran. They remain forbidden in several stadiums and there is no clarity from Iranian authorities or FIFA on their attendance, though the two parties are in ongoing dialogue about these issues.

Following the Tehran derby, FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on Instagram in December: “Thanks to the ongoing dialogue between FIFA and the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation (FFIRI), progress is being made.” In the same post, Infantino said that at a recent meeting with then-Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi — who died in a helicopter crash in May of this year — he had raised the “development of women’s football in the country and progress made regarding the presence of women in football stadiums”.

FIFA’s president did not mention that tickets for women remain capped at three per cent of the stadium capacity or that the mixing of men and women inside stadiums is forbidden. Sections for women are usually tucked away in corners with the worst views of the pitch. Questions also remain about availability and whether many attendees are selected by the Iranian FA and authorities.

Infantino’s heralding of his and FIFA’s role in Iran’s changed stance has been criticised by campaigners. The Athletic spoke to multiple Iranian activists who have campaigned for change for more than a decade. One described FIFA’s stance as a “slap in the face to Iranian women”. Another alleged Infantino was “rewriting the story”. Human Rights Watch said FIFA’s positioning was “shameless”, while a former FIFA executive member who advocated for Iranian women described the return of women to stadiums as “not real”.

Since Saudi Arabia lifted its national ban on women attending men’s football matches in 2018, Iran had stood alone in banning women. The return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has diminished the rights and freedoms of females across that country and females can no longer attend football matches there. While the latest loosening of the ban in Iran is cause for cautious optimism, questions remain.

In February 2016, Infantino was elected president of world football’s governing body. The Swiss-Italian swept into office on a platform of reform after his predecessor Sepp Blatter was ejected from office by the independent FIFA Ethics Committee amid a corruption scandal. In March 2018, Infantino visited Iran for the first time in his presidency to meet the nation’s then-president Hassan Rouhani and play a mediating role in an ongoing diplomatic dispute between Iranian and Saudi clubs. He also attended the Tehran derby at the Azadi stadium.

Azadi means ‘freedom’ in Persian, a cruel irony for Iranian women who had been continually denied access to the national stadium. In 2006, the ban was lifted by then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who argued it would “promote chastity”, but the decision was reversed within a month by the nation’s supreme leader. The ban is not written into law but has become a practice enforced by Iran’s ‘morality police’, who enforce Sharia.

As Infantino watched from the stands in 2018, 35 women were detained outside the Azadi for trying to enter. Iranian interior ministry spokesman Seyed Salman Samani said the women were not arrested but transferred to a “proper place” by police. Campaigners criticised Infantino for attending the match and for not publicly addressing the issue during his visit. In 2015, his predecessor, Blatter, had called on Iranian officials to end the ban: “This cannot continue,” Blatter said. “Hence, my appeal to the Iranian authorities; open the nation’s football stadiums to women.”

Iran’s long-standing ban on females attending matches contravenes FIFA’s rules, which state that discrimination based on gender — including exclusion or interference with access for women and girls to stadiums — is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion”. In addition, in 2017, FIFA adopted a Human Rights policy pledging to “apply effective leverage” to strengthen “human rights in or through football”.

Open Stadiums is an organisation that has been fighting for women to be allowed to attend matches since 2005. It is run by Sara — a pseudonym she has adopted as she could face 15 years in prison if discovered. “One aim was to negotiate and advocate towards the government and religious leaders,” she tells The Athletic. “The other side was to ensure the population knew their rights. When so many of your rights are banned, not being allowed into stadiums may not feel so important.”

In the early years, online campaigning was virtually non-existent. Protests swept across Iran in 2009 amid the fallout of presidential election results. Many women’s rights campaigners went into exile and it was not until 2013 that campaigning could resume, though it was something of a false start. “After a few years, and especially when Infantino came in, we began to realise FIFA did not care about us,” Sara says. “The subject did not interest them.” Of Infantino’s visit in 2018 and the arrests of female football fans, Sara says: “It was really humiliating.”

Maryam Shojaei, who founded the #NoBan4Women movement, has been campaigning to end the stadium ban on women for a decade. A Canadian citizen, she has travelled to Iranian national team matches away from home to brandish banners calling for the male-only rule to end. Speaking to The Athletic, she was critical of FIFA’s positioning after last season’s December derby.

“If they want to take credit for change, they must take responsibility for what happened before,” she says. “FIFA refused to take responsibility for years for all the suffering of Iranian women and now they suddenly want to take credit. They did not impose their own rules for so many years.”

Immediately after Infantino attended the 2018 Tehran derby, he took a flight to speak at FIFA’s fourth conference for equality and inclusion in Zurich. Although it was not on the agenda, the ban on women in Iranian stadiums was referenced by the FIFA president. “I went to the president of Iran and I asked him to please consider giving access to women in the stadiums,” Infantino said. “He promised me that this will happen; I hope and I am confident. I was promised that women in Iran will have access to football stadiums soon.”

Justifying his attendance at the men-only match, Infantino said at the time: “There are two ways to deal with this matter: either we criticise, we sanction, we condemn, we don’t speak and we cut relations. Or we go there and have a discussion and try to convince the leaders of the country that they should give (women) access to stadiums. I went for the second option.”

Sara from Open Stadiums describes the aftermath of Infantino’s 2018 visit as the beginning of a chain of events that began to capture global attention. “Many teenage girls and young women began to dress up as men to get into stadiums,” she explains. “Some became internationally famous on social media.” When authorities became aware of attendance, security was stepped up and multiple arrests followed. Many of those detained later fled Iran.

“Our aim was not just to watch football, dressed as men, but to go as women,” Sara explained. “Our movement was about equality. But these incidents brought attention.” One woman who dressed as a man was Sahar Khodayari. In March 2019, the 29-year-old went to watch her team, Esteghlal, play the UAE’s Al Ain in the Asian Champions League, in what was their first home game of the season. She had been inspired by others dressing up as men and after following online make-up tutorials, attempted to enter the Azadi.

Khodayari was identified and detained by the police. She spent a week in Gharchak, a disused chicken farm-turned-prison. Conditions were said to be overcrowded and unhygienic.

The Esteghlal match where Khodayari was detained (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

On September 2, 2019, Khodayari heard she would face charges. Women being banned from stadiums is not written in law, but she was charged with failing to respect Islamic hijab regulations. The sentence was a maximum of two years in prison. She left the court and set herself on fire on the judiciary steps. She died in hospital one week later, having suffered burns across her body. An Iranian government official later denied that she was to face charges.

Khodayari has posthumously become known as the ‘Blue Girl’ — referencing the colours of Esteghlal, the club she wanted to watch.

On June 6, 2019, three months before Khodayari’s death, Iran played Syria in Tehran. Women attempting to enter the Azadi were blocked and detained by security forces. Later that month, Infantino responded. In partnership with the Asian Football Confederation, he wrote to the Iranian FA to demand stadium access for women. He highlighted how “a number of women seeking to attend the match (against Syria) were detained by security forces for a number of hours”.

Infantino’s letter said: “I would be very grateful if you could inform FIFA, at your earliest convenience but no later than 15 July 2019, as to the concrete steps which both the FFIRI (Iranian FA) and the Iranian state authorities will now be taking in order to ensure that all Iranian and foreign women who wish to do so will be allowed to buy tickets and to attend the matches of the qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which will start in September 2019.”

On June 15, 2019, two spectators were removed from the Women’s World Cup match between Canada and New Zealand in Grenoble for wearing clothing displaying the message: “Let Iranian Women Enter Their Stadiums”. Three days later, FIFA released a statement stating that the message was a “social, not political” one and therefore should have been allowed inside the stadium.

In October 2019, Iranian authorities allowed women to purchase tickets for Iran’s match against Cambodia at the Azadi. Despite them being released at midnight, on a different website to normal and only a week before the match, women bought tickets in droves. It is estimated that 3,000 fans attended. As was the case for the December 2023 derby, women were only allowed into one section of the stadium. FIFA operated the gate. Footage of the match showed how vast sections of the stadium were empty. Iran won 14-0. Amnesty International described that match as “nothing more than a publicity stunt rather than a meaningful step to lifting the ban altogether”.

Any momentum following the Cambodia match soon dissipated. In November 2019, anti-government protests broke out across Iran. Initially a reaction to gasoline prices, the movement quickly extended into wider opposition to the nation’s ruling elite. More than 1,500 deaths were reported. In January 2020, amid escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, a civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv was shot down by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards over the Iranian capital — Iran said it was a mistake, having thought the plane was a U.S. missile. All 176 people on board were killed. Iran was declared a no-fly zone. Two months later, the Covid-19 pandemic began.

In March 2022, women were denied entry to the Imam Reza Stadium in Mashhad — known as Iran’s most conservative major city — for the World Cup qualifier between Iran and Lebanon. Women with tickets say they were pepper-sprayed by security forces. Unlike the match against Cambodia in 2019, FIFA had no security operation in place. The Iranian FA later issued a statement saying that “due to a lack of preparation” they were not able to accommodate women at the match. They claimed only nine women had bought tickets with many more “fake” tickets distributed among fans. All subsequent matches have fallen under the Iranian FA’s jurisdiction.

In late 2022, a fresh wave of protests swept across Iran. It followed the September 13 arrest of Mahsa Amini by the ‘morality police’, who claimed she was wearing her hijab incorrectly. The 22-year-old was taken to the Vozara detention centre. Her brother, arrested alongside her, was informed she would be released within an hour. That evening, Amini’s family were told she had suffered a heart attack and brain seizure. Transported to hospital, there were visible signs she had been beaten. Three days later, she was pronounced dead.

The incident placed the rights and freedoms of Iranian women back in the public consciousness. With Iran’s participation in the World Cup less than two months away, football could provide a global platform for the issues to be amplified and brought to an international audience. FIFA was under pressure to exclude Iran.

Two weeks after Amini’s death, Open Stadiums wrote to FIFA to demand Iran be “immediately expelled from the World Cup” as “Iranian women remain locked out of our ‘beautiful game’”. The open letter, addressed to Infantino, read: “Iranian women trust neither the Islamic Republic’s authorities nor the Iranian Football Federation that the Azadi stadium will remain open to them after the FIFA World Cup 2022 concludes.” The letter highlighted that the Vozara detention centre where Amini was taken was the same one “where female fans are usually brought to and tortured if we dare to try to attend a football game”.

FIFA had already banned Russia from the World Cup, removing them from the qualification process after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Speaking to The Athletic in 2024, with Russia still banned by FIFA, Open Stadiums said FIFA’s decision to ban Russia but not Iran was “eye-opening” and felt it re-enforced its fears that the organisation was “not paying attention” to what was happening in Iran. “These are regimes that have stable dictators, no matter how many people get killed,” it said. “This is our reality.”

In October 2022, one month before the World Cup, a letter was written by law firm Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo to FIFA on behalf of a group of former and current Iranian sports figures, calling for the nation to be removed from the World Cup. The letter read: “Football, which should be a safe place for everyone, is not a safe space for women or even men.” The letter continued: “Women have been consistently denied access to stadia across the country and systematically excluded from the football ecosystem in Iran, which sharply contrasts with FIFA’s values and statutes.”

Iran played in the World Cup and were eliminated at the group stage. In their opening match against England, Iran’s footballers did not sing their national anthem — played out to audible boos from those in the crowd. The nation’s anthem expresses its desire for the Islamic Republic to live forever.

Supporters hold up Mahsa Amini’s name at the World Cup match between Iran and USA (Virginie Lefour/Belga Mag/AFP/Getty Images)

The message ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ was displayed on an Iranian flag and on tops by some fans. One fan held up an Iran top with ‘Mahsa Amini, 22’ imprinted on the back. There were allegations that Qatari authorities were preventing Iranian fans from carrying the ‘Lion and Sun’ symbol on Iran’s tricolour, the national flag before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Three days after Iran’s opening-game defeat against England, Voria Ghafouri — who was part of the nation’s 2018 World Cup squad — was arrested by Iranian security forces after using social media to call for the government to end its violence against Kurds. A vocal critic of the Iranian regime, Ghafouri was deemed to have “tarnished the reputation of the national team and spread propaganda against the state”.

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Footballers being punished for speaking out against Iran’s regime is not uncommon. Former Bayern Munich players Ali Karimi and Ali Daei, Iran’s two greatest footballers, are among them. Karimi posted on social media in 2022 that not even holy water could “wash away this disgrace” of Amini’s death. The 127-time capped midfielder, based in Dubai, was charged in absentia by Iran with “encouraging riots” and his house in the nation was seized by the Iranian state. Iran imposed a travel ban on Karimi, his wife and her family during the 2022 anti-government protests, according to leaked documents seen by the BBC. Daei, also based in the United Arab Emirates, said an international flight in December was rerouted to prevent his wife and daughter from leaving Iran to join him on holiday.

Shojaei, the founder of #NoBan4Women, who did not reveal her real identity for several years, tells The Athletic:  “This has become a very political issue, the price of talking about the stadium issue is so high. It is not about women going to a stadium for the authorities, it is about defeating a system and defeating an ideology.”

Her brother was former national team captain Masoud Shojaei, who spent 15 years representing Iran and had spells at Osasuna, Las Palmas and AEK Athens. During his playing career, Masoud Shojaei frequently spoke of the ban and his regret that his family were not allowed in stadiums to watch him play. In one widely shared clip on social media, he said: “I think it is the dream of many Iranian women who are football fans (to be in the stadium). I think if (the stadium ban is lifted) we would have to build a stadium that could hold 200,000 spectators because we see the flood of passion from our women.”

Masoud Shojaei’s last appearance for Iran came in 2019, but the current generation of footballers have been vocal in highlighting the ban on women. In September 2022, striker Sardar Azmoun — currently at Bayer Leverkusen and one of Iran’s highest-profile stars — wrote on social media: “Due to Iranian national team regulations, I couldn’t make any comment and statement, but I can’t tolerate this any longer. They might put me out of the national team. I don’t care, I’ll sacrifice it for the freedom of Iranian women.” Azmoun’s posts were later deleted.

Six months earlier, after women were denied access to Iran’s win over Lebanon, Feyenoord forward Alireza Jahanbakhsh said in a live interview on state television: “I hope that from now on during home matches, our dear women can also spectate, so we can make them happy as well.” His comments were edited out when the game was re-aired later.

In March 2024, Persepolis wrote (in what was also released as a club statement) to the Iranian FA to request the “creation of better facilities for women in the Azadi”. The club acknowledged that women were “facing problems due to their ticket platform” and added that “we hope that they will be assigned a more suitable area with a better view to watch our games”.

After Esteghlal’s win at Aluminium Arak in the Iranian Premier League on April 12, their goalkeeper and captain Hossein Hosseini embraced a female fan on the pitch. The woman was not wearing the compulsory hijab, with Iranian media reporting she had been attempting to evade security forces by entering the playing area. Video footage shows Hosseini gesturing for the fan to embrace him, with the Iran international then making a hand gesture for security forces to back off. Security personnel separated the two, with a confrontation involving several people.

Hosseini was subsequently suspended for one match and given a fine of three billion rials ($4,500, £3,618). It was deemed by authorities to be “unprofessional and beyond the legal duties of a player”. Later in April, Iran’s Football Federation said women would not be allowed into Tractor’s 67,000-capacity Tabriz stadium until further notice. “This was a simple management issue,” says Sara from Open Stadiums. “The previous match, they took all purses off women as they did not want them in the stadium. Then it became chaotic after, with many purses lost. So instead of fixing the issue, it was easier to ban women from attending.”

Sara from Open Stadiums describes Infantino meeting Iran’s president Raisi in September 2023 as a “horrible” moment, highlighting that it coincided with the anniversary of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ uprising following Amini’s death. “It is eye-opening, honestly,” Sara says. “It does not matter that there are deaths. You can see that regimes are trying to build a new image through sport.” Asked about Infantino’s post, Sara described it as “rewriting the story”. “The reality is that for years, we have pressured Infantino to make him realise we are getting killed and being imprisoned just because we want to watch football.”

Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, told The Athletic that Infantino and FIFA were “shameless in claiming credit for modest progress” in Iran. “Any progress is due entirely to the courage of women’s rights activists and fans who were forced to dress as men, write formal Human Rights legal complaints to FIFA, and risk their lives to go to stadiums for many years,” Worden said. “The Iranian FA is actually the one enforcing this deadly ban and jailing women and girls, whose only crime is to cheer their favourite teams.”

For Open Stadiums, more progress is required. There is still segregation in stadiums, which does not apply to cinemas, theatres or other public venues in Iran. Not only does that appear to conflict with FIFA’s statutes, but it also causes practical problems. The entrances to the separate sections are far apart, with mobile phone reception poor due to large crowds. This results in families being separated and unable to contact each other.

The organisation is also pushing for no capped capacity on females, which is another element of FIFA’s statutes that are being breached. There are suspicions from campaigners that only a fraction of the women in stadiums have bought tickets online. There is a concern from activists that many of those attending are selected by the authorities and many obtain access through the Iranian FA. “There needs to be clear and transparent accounting of how many tickets are sold through the websites because this is not clear,” Sara explains.

Women are still not allowed into multiple stadiums across Iran. Open Stadiums say this is the case at Sepahan, who play in a 75,000-capacity stadium and reached this season’s Asian Champions League knockout phase. Some local city authorities argue they cannot accommodate females because the stadiums are not equipped to host them. However, Sara calls this “an excuse from conservative cities to continue to prevent women from attending”.

Iran’s presidential elections in July 2024 brought a victory for Masoud Pezeshkian, leading on a reform platform. A new head of government may herald internal change, with a new ministry of sport and hope that women’s rights will be addressed.

In December 2023, Iran’s women’s team climbed to a record high of 59th in the FIFA world rankings. However, men remain banned from watching female football matches because authorities have insisted on separating both sexes from attending the other’s football matches. This limits sponsorship opportunities and TV coverage, starving the women’s game of visibility and money.

For Open Stadiums, other protest organisations and females across Iran, the fight for football equality is far from over.

In a statement to The Athletic about the issues raised in this article, FIFA said: “FIFA believes in engagement and dialogue and this approach has shown results as demonstrated by the obvious progress since 2018.

“This progress has been gradual, with international matches, then domestic league matches in Tehran, and finally more and more domestic league matches across Iran now seeing women in attendance. According to the latest reports, close to half of all stadiums and matches in Iran’s top league saw women attending matches in the past season. This is definitely progress after a period of 40 years of a complete ban on women in stadiums.

“However, this is not the end of the road. FIFA has clearly expressed that it looks towards a future where all girls and women wishing to attend football matches in the Islamic Republic of Iran will be free to do so. This is why the dialogue with the Iranian FA and the authorities continues. The matter is regularly raised in FIFA’s exchanges with the FFIRI at all levels, not only by the FIFA President. Our dialogue with FFIRI has been progressing over the past years, with FFIRI delivering on many of their commitments and gradually improving access for women to stadiums across the country.”

The Iranian government did not offer comment and the FFIRI did not respond to a request for comment.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)