Women to attend 'some' sports matches in Iran as ban is relaxed

Women have been banned from attending men's sports matches in Iran since the 1979 revolution

Iran’s ban on women attending men’s sports matches is to be relaxed (Getty)

Iran’s ban on women attending men’s sports matches is to be relaxed, but not lifted entirely, a senior official has said.

Women and families will be allowed to attend some sports events, Tehran’s deputy sports minister, Abdolhamid Ahmadi, told the official IRNA news agency, but he warned they would not be admitted to every match and every stadium. “Of course, in some areas of sport, families are not interested in attending nor is there a possibility for them to attend,” he said.

The plan is expected to be put in place before the end of the current Iranian calendar year in March 2016.

Ghoncheh Ghavami after her release from Evin jail in Iran last year (AP)

The announcement comes after Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, urged Iran earlier this year to end the ban on women watching football in stadiums. It also follows the jailing of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 26-year-old Iranian British woman who was arrested last year for trying to attend a men’s volleyball game in Tehran. Ms Ghavami was released on £20,000 bail in November 2014 after five months in Tehran’s Evin prison. She was pardoned by the Court of Appeal last week.

“The uncertainty of autumn and the dark clouds of winter have gone,” her brother, Iman Ghavami, said on Facebook. “And the sun once again is shining for my family. Spring is here.”

Women have been banned from attending men’s sports matches in Iran since the 1979 revolution that brought hardline Islamic clerics to power, although foreign women are allowed to attend their national teams’ matches.

Iran recently lost a bid against the United Arab Emirates to host the 2019 Asian Cup. Some officials said the ban on female attendance played a factor in the decision.

AP