TEHRAN, 29 Oct. (DPA / EP) –
The Iranian Parliament will soon decide on women’s access to stadiums after receiving a draft of a bill from the country’s Football Federation calling for equality in the stands.
“The Iranian Football Federation (FFI) has submitted a draft to parliament … if approved, women will soon be able to enter football stadiums,” said FFI director general Hassan Kamranifar without offering further. details.
In Islamic Iran, women have been banned from attending football matches in stadiums for four decades; and arch-conservative clergy believe that women have nothing to do in stadiums with male fans and their “vulgar” slogans.
That the country’s parliament will agree to such a bill seems unlikely to observers, given that the legislature is dominated by the hard line.
After mounting pressure from FIFA, Iran relented in October 2019 and allowed some 4,000 women access to the Azadi Stadium in Tehran, at least for the qualifying match for the next World Cup in Iran against Cambodia.
A few months later, however, the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Iran and all football matches had to, and still must, be played behind closed doors. This also took the issue of women and stadiums off the table for a long time.
But now that more than 90% of the Iranian population has been vaccinated at least once and 40% twice, there is no reason not to allow vaccinated fans to enter stadiums.
In that case, the FFI would have to allow women into stadiums, at least for World Cup qualifying matches. Otherwise, in the worst case, the country could be excluded from the Qatar 2022 World Cup.