The wheels of theocracy grind slowly. Given that Iran’s highest clerics had spent 38 years imposing a blanket ban on women attending football matches, they were never likely to disavow all remnants of the past in the space of a single World Cup qualifier.
Even so, their decision to admit a smattering of female fans into Tehran’s Azadi Stadium for the national team’s 14-0 win over Cambodia on Thursday, presented by Fifa as a line-in-the-sand moment, came with troubling caveats.
Why were only 3,500 women allowed to take their places in an 80,000-capacity venue? Why were female photographers reportedly denied press credentials? And why, when Fifa president Gianni Infantino declared last month that Iran’s discriminatory access policy had to end, did he not even mention the name of Sahar Khodayari?
Not that the regime would acknowledge it, but the tragic case of Khodayari was central to the scenes that played out at the Azadi. [The Telegraph] Read more
