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Iranian football fans at a World Cup qualifier against Cambodia, 2019
Photo: ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA-EFE/REX
For the first time in more than four decades, Iranian women are allowed to play in the football stadium for a league game.
The women will be provided with 28,000 tickets and thus 30 percent of Tehran's Asadi Stadium, a spokesman for Iran's sports ministry said on Wednesday.
If the result is positive, women will soon be granted access to the stadiums in other cities, according to the spokesman, according to the Isna news agency.
The league game is the encounter between Esteghlal Tehran and Mess Kerman on Thursday in the Iranian capital.
Under pressure from the world football association Fifa, a limited number of women have been allowed to attend the Asadi Stadium in Tehran, at least for the World Cup qualifiers.
In 2019, before the end of the ban, the case of a football supporter who tried to get into the stadium and was arrested caused a sensation.
At the court hearing, she set herself on fire in protest and succumbed to her injuries.
The ban has been in effect for over 40 years
The ban has since been officially lifted, but there are still problems.
It was only in March that women were denied entry to an international match – despite having valid tickets.
Women were still officially banned from attending league games.
The ban has been in place for over forty years.
The country's arch-conservative clergy believe that women have no place in stadiums with fanatical male fans and their vulgar slogans.
kjo/dpa
