Iran's women still waiting for stadium access

Kyodo - Japanese tourists Shoko Tanaka and Mariko Aritaki will be covering up in headscarves for their first live soccer match as Japan take on Iran in Tehran in a Group B qualifier for the 2006 World Cup finals on Friday.
As only two of a tiny number of traveling female Japanese fans who will be among an almost exclusively male crowd of over 100,000 at Tehran's Azadi Stadium, they feel quite privileged to be able to watch the match at all.

After all, Iranian women, many of whom are the Islamic country's most passionate fans, will be forced to stay at home and watch the game on television as the Iran Football Federation has upheld a ban on them from entering stadiums.

For Iranian women, cheering on their favorite team from the terraces has not been possible for over two decades. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been banned from attending men's sporting events.

And although the Cabinet's cultural committee has in the past given provisional approval for women to attend matches provided authorities create the "necessary" conditions, little appears to have changed.

Iranian authorities say they bar women from stadiums because of the abusive language directed at opposing teams and to protect them from harassment from raucous fans. They don't appear to be in a rush to change their conservative attitude either.

"There are some games like basketball and such that women can watch but because of the age of the spectators they are rowdy," Iran Football Federation spokesman Siamak Geramy told Kyodo News.

"They are hot-blooded young men who are sitting hot potatoes and they might do something that is not good for women," he added.

In recent years there has been a growing movement in the Iranian media to allow women to attend men's matches and sports journalist Daryoush Zahab is one man still campaigning for change.

"I believe that the Iran-Japan match provides a great opportunity for football authorities in Iran to take a significant and constructive step toward moving the barriers and allowing women into football stadiums," said Zahab.

"This positive gesture should be one of many steps to take in order to eliminate the social barriers that exist in allowing women into the stadiums and treating them equally as they should be treated," he added.

In a taboo-breaking step in the conservative state two years ago, Iranian club Mahdi Dadras allowed women to watch them play against Barq because its fans do not use foul language and the manager of the club thought the presence of women improved his players' morale.

In rare cases, Iranian authorities have allowed foreign women to attend matches and Japanese women have been given the all-clear to enter the stadium for Friday's games.

Japan's Foreign Ministry has advised them to respect dress norms in Iran, where the majority of the population is Shiite Muslim.

As Iranian women are supposed to cover their hair and not wear tight clothes, they wear scarves to cover their head and coats that are long enough to cover their knees.

"We will be wearing our headscarves as we have been advised to. I can't imagine what it will be like to be among such a big crowd of men," said Tanaka.

"I really can't understand why they won't let women in, it's a shame," she added.