Ruhani gives green light for Iranian women to attend football matches

Iranian President Hassan Ruhani has given the green light for Iranian women to attend football matches, Iranian news agency ISNA reported on Monday.

Ruhani conveyed the news in a note to Sports Minister Masoud Soltanifar, who in turn asked the president how the Ministry for Sport should proceed.

There seems to have been a thawing on the matter within Iran’s ultra-conservative clergy, which previously had been of the opinion that women had no business being in football stadiums alongside passionate male fans shouting pithy slogans.

Now a spokesman for Iran’s Guardian Council – the 12-man body that wields significant power in the country – says that an “absolute ban” is no longer rational.

“If there should be a way then it should be no problem to find a solution [to the stadium ban],” Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said, according to state news portal YJC.

Proposals for stands exclusively for women and families have previously been rejected by the clergy.

But years of protest – most recently in front of an international audience as Iran played at the World Cup in Russia – seem finally to have worked.

Iran’s arch-enemy Saudi Arabia – traditionally seen as more conservative than Iran – recently allowed women to attend matches, and Iran’s refusal to follow suit had earned it a welter of criticism on social media.

The breakthrough came in June, when Iran’s 1-0 World Cup loss to Spain was shown on a big screen at a stadium in Tehran, marking the first time in nearly 40 years that women have been allowed to follow a football match in a stadium in the country.

Women have been banned from entering stadiums in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.