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Hard-Liners Upset, Iranian Women Celebrate After Buying Soccer Tickets for
First Time

Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL

   After decades of being banned from attending men's sporting events,
   Iran's female soccer fans are celebrating the fact they will be able to
   attend their national team's upcoming World Cup qualifier against
   Cambodia.

   "I got a ticket, I will go to the stadium!" tweeted a woman, adding:
   "Can you believe I'm saying this?"

   The game at Tehran's Azadi Stadium Thursday will be the first time
   since shortly after Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 that women can
   watch a men's match without needing special, rare invitations or being
   forced to sneak in disguised as men.

   The milestone comes following years of campaigning by women's rights
   activists and increased pressure from FIFA -- world soccer's governing
   body -- that intensified following the tragic death in September of a
   woman who set herself alight after being charged over a failed attempt
   to enter a stadium to watch her favorite team.

   The announcement that some 3,500 segregated seats of the nearly 80,000
   at the stadium would be reserved for women led to a joyous reaction
   from long-suffering followers of the sport.

   Women -- as well as men -- have been celebrating on social media by
   posting copies of their tickets for the much-anticipated match, with
   the tickets reserved for women selling out within minutes after going
   on sale on October 4.

   One woman said that, although she's 35 years old, this is the first
   time she has bought a ticket to a soccer match.

   "All those years when I understood football I wished I could go to the
   stadium and cheer for the Esteghlal [club soccer team in Tehran] and
   the national team," she said, adding that "it's too late [for me] but
   hopefully [this policy of allowing women to watch football matches]
   will continue and the younger generation won't have regrets like we do
   [of missing so many years of attending games]."

   Excitement and disbelief

   Other women who managed to buy tickets expressed their excitement and
   disbelief on social media under the hashtag
   #Come_with_me_to_the_stadium (in Persian).

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