|
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. |
