I hope the Mullahs don't go after them and kill them. I don't know what the Persians are waiting to revolt, maybe there's still a large number of Islamic extremists supporting the Ayatollahs.
The roar of the crowd was different that day.
No deep masculine voices, no thundering male chants - instead, a symphony of feminine energy filled Naqsh-e-Jahan Stadium in central Isfahan.
On Monday, over 30,000 women turned the stadium into a symbol of defiance and their presence was stronger than any goal or tackle. Sepahan FC and Persepolis FC played on the field, but the real victory was happening in the stands.
Where men had once dominated, women now sat – shoulder to shoulder, row after row, a living testament to decades of struggle.
The VIP and press sections might have retained their traditional composition, but everywhere else? Pure feminine solidarity. For over thirty years, women have fought for their rights.
Some were arrested. Some sacrificed everything. Generations of women who were told that their presence in stadiums was “un-Islamic” had persistently challenged that narrative.
The all-female presence is expected to be repeated, perhaps at Azadi Stadium or at the Shahr-e Qods Stadium, which will host the return leg of these two teams’ match in Tehran.
The ban on men’s attendance at stadiums and the presence of women at the match was a “gender-based ruling,” which allowed women to enter Isfahan’s stadium without going through the usual selection process.
However, the presence of women and girls at Naqsh-e-Jahan Stadium does not indicate a complete “lifting of the ban” on their attendance.
Women still do not have the right to enter stadiums in many Iranian cities, or they are allowed to sit in the stands only selectively, and typically only to demonstrate their attendance to FIFA.
Earlier this year, during the match between Persepolis and Sepahan, one of Sepahan’s cheerleaders, dressed in a gold shirt and scarf with a headband inscribed with “Ya Zahra,” shouted insulting and gender-biased chants about female Persepolis fans, which sparked widespread backlash.
As a result, the disciplinary committee of the Football Federation fined both clubs and ordered that the teams play their next direct encounters without male spectators, allowing only female fans.
While state-run media outlets in Iran hailed the ruling as “historic” and “different,” the decision was actually in conflict with FIFA’s principles on “gender discrimination in sports.”
By this ruling, the Football Federation used “women” as a tool to “punish” male Iranian spectators.
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, numerous religious authorities, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Naser Makarem Shirazi, and hardline clerics such as Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, issued public decrees imposing a complete ban on women attending stadiums in Iran.
The first women to publicly and collectively demand the right to enter stadiums were known as the “White Headscarf Women.”
In 2005, around 50 women, most wearing white headscarves, gathered in front of the western gate of Azadi Stadium before the crucial Iran-Bahrain match, which determined the national team’s qualification for the World Cup.
They peacefully demanded the gates be opened.
Among them were prominent women like Asieh Amini, a journalist and women’s rights activist, and Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer and activist.
Despite the peaceful nature of the gathering, it was met with intervention from the Islamic Republic’s police.
Subsequently, women continued their peaceful efforts to stand outside stadium gates and attempt to gain access to the stands.
In March 2006, less than six months after taking office, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued an order to Mohammad Aliabadi, the head of the Sports Organization at the time, to create conditions for women to enter stadiums. However, someone vetoed this order.
The order was met with resistance from Ahmad Khatami, the temporary Friday prayer leader of Tehran, and later from Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi.
Ahmadinejad asked Aliabadi and Ali Saeedlou, the vice president, to quickly implement his order on allowing women into stadiums.
He had said, “The letter I wrote to you was an order, not a proposal.”
Initially, Ahmad Khatami responded in May of that year during the first Friday prayer sermon, saying: “I consider the most important reason for clerical opposition to women in stadiums to be the importance of observing hijab and chastity. You tell us, who will guarantee the adherence to Islamic principles for women attending stadiums to watch sports matches?”
In January 2016, Morteza Aghatehrani, a cleric close to Misbah Yazdi, revealed the conflict between Ahmadinejad and Yazdi in an interview.
Aghatehrani, who was a member of parliament at the time, recounted that one day after the president’s order, Naser Marakem Shirazi asked him to convince Ahmadinejad to reconsider his decision.
Aghatehrani claimed that he relayed the warning and verbal message from Marakem Shirazi to the president during a cabinet session, but Ahmadinejad responded with a sarcastic smile, saying, “Tell him not to worry.”
Ultimately, Misbah Yazdi personally intervened and, during one of his lectures, said, “This action [allowing women into stadiums] is against Sharia and its principles.”
“A woman cannot look at a man with a naked body,” he added. “It is forbidden.”
Misbah Yazdi died in 2020 and did not witness the entry of Iranian women into stadiums.
From the mid-2010s, Iranian girls and women found a new way to bypass the watchful eyes of clerics, security forces, and law enforcement: dressing as men.
Starting in 2016, a group of Iranian girls, gradually known as the “Girls of Azadi,” began entering Azadi Stadium by wearing men’s clothing and applying makeup to appear like men.
Photos of these girls shared on social media eventually drew the attention of both the Football Federation and security agencies.
In July 2019, IranWire learned that several of the “Girls of Azadi” had been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Intelligence Organization.
Sources revealed that these arrests were made at the request of Mehdi Taj, the president of the Football Federation, who asked the intelligence agency to intervene.
The bitterest story in the history of Iranian football was written here in March 2019, when Sahar Khodayari, known as “Blue Girl,” went to Azadi Stadium to watch her favorite football team, Esteghlal.
She was arrested and spent three days in detention.
When she was released, she was told that she would be put on trial. After multiple trips to the Tehran prosecutor’s office, the trial was never held, but she overheard a sentence in the hallways: “You will probably be sentenced to six months in prison.”
After leaving the prosecutor’s office, she set herself on fire.
She died, and in silence and obscurity, under a security-heavy atmosphere and without her family present, she was buried in Qom.
Football, which was supposed to be a path to peace, calm, and part of the joyous life of the people of the world, took the life of a girl who feared imprisonment for loving stadiums.
Initially, FIFA remained silent about the incident, but when Sahar Khodayari’s name appeared on banners and was chanted by football fans in Europe, on the stands of stadiums in Germany, Italy, and Spain, FIFA could no longer stay silent.
In August 2019, FIFA quietly addressed the greatest gender apartheid in the history of world football – the four-decade-long ban on women entering stadiums in Iran.
In 2019, in response to an inquiry from IranWire about the status of Iranian women attending stadiums, FIFA wrote, “FIFA’s position on women’s access to stadiums in Iran is very clear … all women should be allowed into football stadiums in Iran, for all football matches.”
Despite FIFA’s clear order for women’s unrestricted access to all stadiums in Iran, some stadiums still do not allow women to enter, and in others, women are allowed entry selectively.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, no football match in Iran has been held where an equal number of women and men have been present in the stands to watch a game.
iranwire.com
The roar of the crowd was different that day.
No deep masculine voices, no thundering male chants - instead, a symphony of feminine energy filled Naqsh-e-Jahan Stadium in central Isfahan.
On Monday, over 30,000 women turned the stadium into a symbol of defiance and their presence was stronger than any goal or tackle. Sepahan FC and Persepolis FC played on the field, but the real victory was happening in the stands.
Where men had once dominated, women now sat – shoulder to shoulder, row after row, a living testament to decades of struggle.
The VIP and press sections might have retained their traditional composition, but everywhere else? Pure feminine solidarity. For over thirty years, women have fought for their rights.
Some were arrested. Some sacrificed everything. Generations of women who were told that their presence in stadiums was “un-Islamic” had persistently challenged that narrative.
The all-female presence is expected to be repeated, perhaps at Azadi Stadium or at the Shahr-e Qods Stadium, which will host the return leg of these two teams’ match in Tehran.
The ban on men’s attendance at stadiums and the presence of women at the match was a “gender-based ruling,” which allowed women to enter Isfahan’s stadium without going through the usual selection process.
However, the presence of women and girls at Naqsh-e-Jahan Stadium does not indicate a complete “lifting of the ban” on their attendance.
Women still do not have the right to enter stadiums in many Iranian cities, or they are allowed to sit in the stands only selectively, and typically only to demonstrate their attendance to FIFA.
Earlier this year, during the match between Persepolis and Sepahan, one of Sepahan’s cheerleaders, dressed in a gold shirt and scarf with a headband inscribed with “Ya Zahra,” shouted insulting and gender-biased chants about female Persepolis fans, which sparked widespread backlash.
As a result, the disciplinary committee of the Football Federation fined both clubs and ordered that the teams play their next direct encounters without male spectators, allowing only female fans.
While state-run media outlets in Iran hailed the ruling as “historic” and “different,” the decision was actually in conflict with FIFA’s principles on “gender discrimination in sports.”
By this ruling, the Football Federation used “women” as a tool to “punish” male Iranian spectators.
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, numerous religious authorities, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Naser Makarem Shirazi, and hardline clerics such as Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, issued public decrees imposing a complete ban on women attending stadiums in Iran.
The first women to publicly and collectively demand the right to enter stadiums were known as the “White Headscarf Women.”
In 2005, around 50 women, most wearing white headscarves, gathered in front of the western gate of Azadi Stadium before the crucial Iran-Bahrain match, which determined the national team’s qualification for the World Cup.
They peacefully demanded the gates be opened.
Among them were prominent women like Asieh Amini, a journalist and women’s rights activist, and Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer and activist.
Despite the peaceful nature of the gathering, it was met with intervention from the Islamic Republic’s police.
Subsequently, women continued their peaceful efforts to stand outside stadium gates and attempt to gain access to the stands.
In March 2006, less than six months after taking office, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued an order to Mohammad Aliabadi, the head of the Sports Organization at the time, to create conditions for women to enter stadiums. However, someone vetoed this order.
The order was met with resistance from Ahmad Khatami, the temporary Friday prayer leader of Tehran, and later from Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi.
Ahmadinejad asked Aliabadi and Ali Saeedlou, the vice president, to quickly implement his order on allowing women into stadiums.
He had said, “The letter I wrote to you was an order, not a proposal.”
Initially, Ahmad Khatami responded in May of that year during the first Friday prayer sermon, saying: “I consider the most important reason for clerical opposition to women in stadiums to be the importance of observing hijab and chastity. You tell us, who will guarantee the adherence to Islamic principles for women attending stadiums to watch sports matches?”
In January 2016, Morteza Aghatehrani, a cleric close to Misbah Yazdi, revealed the conflict between Ahmadinejad and Yazdi in an interview.
Aghatehrani, who was a member of parliament at the time, recounted that one day after the president’s order, Naser Marakem Shirazi asked him to convince Ahmadinejad to reconsider his decision.
Aghatehrani claimed that he relayed the warning and verbal message from Marakem Shirazi to the president during a cabinet session, but Ahmadinejad responded with a sarcastic smile, saying, “Tell him not to worry.”
Ultimately, Misbah Yazdi personally intervened and, during one of his lectures, said, “This action [allowing women into stadiums] is against Sharia and its principles.”
“A woman cannot look at a man with a naked body,” he added. “It is forbidden.”
Misbah Yazdi died in 2020 and did not witness the entry of Iranian women into stadiums.
From the mid-2010s, Iranian girls and women found a new way to bypass the watchful eyes of clerics, security forces, and law enforcement: dressing as men.
Starting in 2016, a group of Iranian girls, gradually known as the “Girls of Azadi,” began entering Azadi Stadium by wearing men’s clothing and applying makeup to appear like men.
Photos of these girls shared on social media eventually drew the attention of both the Football Federation and security agencies.
In July 2019, IranWire learned that several of the “Girls of Azadi” had been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Intelligence Organization.
Sources revealed that these arrests were made at the request of Mehdi Taj, the president of the Football Federation, who asked the intelligence agency to intervene.
The bitterest story in the history of Iranian football was written here in March 2019, when Sahar Khodayari, known as “Blue Girl,” went to Azadi Stadium to watch her favorite football team, Esteghlal.
She was arrested and spent three days in detention.
When she was released, she was told that she would be put on trial. After multiple trips to the Tehran prosecutor’s office, the trial was never held, but she overheard a sentence in the hallways: “You will probably be sentenced to six months in prison.”
After leaving the prosecutor’s office, she set herself on fire.
She died, and in silence and obscurity, under a security-heavy atmosphere and without her family present, she was buried in Qom.
Football, which was supposed to be a path to peace, calm, and part of the joyous life of the people of the world, took the life of a girl who feared imprisonment for loving stadiums.
Initially, FIFA remained silent about the incident, but when Sahar Khodayari’s name appeared on banners and was chanted by football fans in Europe, on the stands of stadiums in Germany, Italy, and Spain, FIFA could no longer stay silent.
In August 2019, FIFA quietly addressed the greatest gender apartheid in the history of world football – the four-decade-long ban on women entering stadiums in Iran.
In 2019, in response to an inquiry from IranWire about the status of Iranian women attending stadiums, FIFA wrote, “FIFA’s position on women’s access to stadiums in Iran is very clear … all women should be allowed into football stadiums in Iran, for all football matches.”
Despite FIFA’s clear order for women’s unrestricted access to all stadiums in Iran, some stadiums still do not allow women to enter, and in others, women are allowed entry selectively.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, no football match in Iran has been held where an equal number of women and men have been present in the stands to watch a game.
Seats of Resistance: When Women Filled Iran’s Stadium
The roar of the crowd was different that day.No deep masculine voices, no thundering male chants - instead, a symphony of feminine ener ...
iranwire.com
