After a two-year ban, the Iranians were allowed to go to the stadium in Tehran to support their men’s national team, which is due to face South Korea on October 12 in a qualifying match for the 2022 World Cup. The last time they could attend a match in the Azadi stadium in Tehran was in October 2019, when the Iranian men’s team faced Cambodia in the knockout match for the 2022 World Cup.
After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranian women were denied access to stadiums, officially to protect them from male rudeness (too kind these gentlemen). FIFA had been pushing for years for Iran to open its stadiums to women, but until 2019 Tehran had only allowed a limited number of women until 2019 (at most a thousand female supporters in November 2018) to attend a few meetings.
“The blue girl” had set herself on fire
In 2019, a young woman, Sahar Khodayari, 30, was arrested trying to enter a stadium disguised as a man to watch a match of her favorite team, Esteghlal FC of Tehran.
Nicknamed “the blue girl”, in reference to the colors of Esteghlal, this supporter then set herself on fire in front of a court entrance in Tehran after hearing that she was going to spend six months in prison.