Ministry of Sports: Women Can Attend Azadi Stadium on October 9

The Legal Deputy of the Ministry of Sports announced that women can attend Azadi Stadium to watch the match between Iran’s national team and Cambodia. Following pressure from FIFA, Iran has agreed to allow women’s presence at the stadium for matches in the qualifying rounds of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

On Sunday, August 25, the Legal Deputy and Provincial Affairs of the Ministry of Sports announced that women can attend Azadi Stadium to watch the match between Iran’s and Cambodia’s national football teams as part of the qualifying rounds for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (ISNA), Jamshid Taqi-Zadeh, while explaining the measures taken by the Parliamentary Affairs Deputy during Government Week, told reporters: “This is the first time women will be present at Azadi Stadium and this match will be held at 17:30 on Thursday, October 9.”

The Deputy Minister of Sports says there is no “legal prohibition” regarding women’s entry into stadiums, and only the necessary infrastructure needs to be prepared, which is currently being done.

Until now, all efforts to allow women’s presence in stadiums have faced strong opposition from hardline conservatives and some Shiite sources of emulation in Qom.

Legal Prohibition, Extra-Legal Prohibition

If the Deputy Minister of Sports’ statement about the absence of legal prohibition for women’s entry into stadiums is correct, preventing this should be called “extra-legal prohibition,” in which some influential sources of emulation in Qom play an important role, and Reza Salehi Amiri, the head of the National Olympic Committee, endorsed this last Saturday and spoke of the necessity of negotiating with them on this matter.

The fact is that women’s freedom to attend stadiums might not have happened so soon without the intervention and pressure of the International Football Federation (FIFA). Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, in a “urgent letter” in late June addressed to Mehdi Taj, the head of Iran’s Football Federation, demanded conditions for women’s presence in stadiums during World Cup qualifying matches.

He called the experience of the friendly match between Iran and Syria’s national football teams on June 6, in which women were prevented from entering the stadium and apparently some of them were arrested, “disappointing.”

The FIFA President wrote to Mehdi Taj that the treatment of women who wished to enter the stadium is neither consistent with the commitments undertaken by Iran’s Football Federation in this regard nor with the promises Hassan Rouhani made during his March 2018 visit.

Is FIFA Pressure More Effective Than Rouhani’s Negotiations?

Thus, it appears that Iranian women’s entry into stadiums, which was one of Hassan Rouhani’s promises and his predecessors and was not realized through negotiations and bargaining, is being achieved through FIFA’s pressure and threats.

Eliminating discrimination against women for attending stadiums is one of the demands of civil rights activists, and the heads of the eleventh and twelfth governments also promised during their presidential election speeches in 2013 and 2017 to work toward fulfilling this demand.

Opposition from some sources of emulation to women’s presence in stadiums has been clearly stated until recently. “Etemad Online” recently asked about the opinion of Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, one of the Shiite sources of emulation in Qom, regarding the issue of women’s presence in stadiums, and published his response on August 6.

Makarem Shirazi said about this: “The atmosphere in stadiums is not suitable for women’s presence, and there is no doubt that the mixing of young men and women is the source of many moral and social problems; moreover, in some types of sports, men do not have appropriate clothing compared to women; therefore, they should refrain from attending these events, especially since these programs can be watched through the media and their presence is unnecessary.”

“Decision at the System Level”

This source of emulation has previously opposed women’s presence in stadiums many times. Parvaneh Salahshouri, a member of the Women’s Faction in Parliament, once quoted the head of the Football Federation as saying: “This matter requires decision-making at the system level.”

On this basis, if the decision regarding women’s freedom to enter stadiums was made “at the system level,” consultations were probably also held to gain the sources of emulation’s support.

Reza Salehi Amiri, in a detailed interview with the government newspaper Iran, whose text was published on August 17, while referring to pressure from international bodies regarding women’s entry into stadiums and “the concerns of the great ones and supreme sources,” emphasized that efforts should be made to address these concerns.

The former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance and current head of the National Olympic Committee implicitly called the reports presented to the sources about stadiums inaccurate and added: “I believe we should address the concerns of the great ones and the sources, provided we give them accurate reports. God willing, we should make a trip to Qom and have discussions with the sources in this regard.”

So far, no reports have been published about the possible reaction of sources of emulation to the statements of the Legal Deputy of the Ministry of Sports, but the possibility of women attending Azadi Stadium at the match between Iran and Cambodia has had extensive repercussions on social networks and cyberspace.

Source: DW