New dawn in Iran as women attend first football match in decades

For the first time in a long time, women in Iran have been allowed to attend a live football match as the ban is lifted.

Women have effectively been banned from stadiums when men are playing since just after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

World football body, FIFA recently added its voice to challenging the country’s insistence on upholding the ban.

But Iranian women attended a World Cup qualifier in Tehran on Thursday, in which Iran thrashed Cambodia 14-0 in front of about 4,000 female spectators.

The change followed the death of a fan who had set herself alight after being arrested for trying to attend a match.

At the game against Cambodia, the women were granted access to a special women’s-only section of the Azadi Stadium.

Only four sections of the 78,000-capacity stadium were allocated to female supporters, and were kept separate from men and under the protection of female police officers.