The incident again highlighted the conflict between Iran’s mostly secular populace, some 80 million people, and the deeply religious government.
“You will not find another country on the planet where the attitudes of the ruling class are so different than those of the regular people,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. His father played for the Iranian national soccer team before the revolution.
The stadium ban
Shortly after the 1979 revolution, Iran’s Islamic government banned women from a range of sporting events, including men’s soccer and volleyball matches.
Some politicians, including former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have said women attending games does not violate Islamic law. He rescinded the rule in 2006. A few weeks later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reinstated the ban.
However, the ban is enforced inconsistently. At some matches, women caught in disguise are turned away at stadium entrances. At others, they are arrested. At a World Cup qualifying match in Tehran against Syria in 2017, Syrian women were allowed to watch the game, but Iranian women, including some parliament members, were not.
In March, 35 women were detained trying to enter a match between Esteqlal and Persepolis with FIFA President Gianni Infantino in attendance, according to the BBC.
“Here’s Iran,” said Patrick Clawson, research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “which not only encourages women to vote and drive, but encourages them to join military units. But they can’t attend soccer games.”
Women and young girls are encouraged to play sports, Vatanka said, as long as they adhere to the government’s conservative laws on dress: The stadium ban has its foundation in the Semitic tradition of female chastity and piety. Women in Iran are required to wear head coverings in public.
