MILAN (AP) - FIFA has been “assured” that Iran will lift its 40-year ban and allow women to attend a World Cup qualifying game next month.
Soccer’s governing body wants Iran to end its ban on women entering stadiums that breaches international soccer statutes prohibiting discrimination.
Global attention on the ban followed the death this month of a 29-year-old activist, Sahar Khodayari, who set herself on fire outside a courthouse. She had been detained for dressing as a man to enter a soccer stadium in Tehran and faced six months in prison.
“There is women’s football in Iran but we need Iranian women as well to be able to attend the men’s game,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a speech at a conference on women’s football on Sunday. “And we need to push for that with respect but in a strong and forceful way. We cannot wait anymore.
“We have been assured, that as of the next international game of Iran, women will be allowed to enter football stadiums. This is something very important, it is 40 years that this has not happened, with a couple of exceptions, but it is important to move to the next level and to the next stage.”
FIFA sent an inspection team to Iran this week to meet government and soccer officials ahead of Iran’s match against Cambodia at the 78,000-capacity Azadi Stadium on Oct. 10 - its first home match of the 2022 qualifying competition.
Infantino’s comments drew praise from United States outgoing coach Jill Ellis, who was at the same FIFA conference in Milan, two months after leading the American women’s team to a second successive World Cup title.
“I think it’s huge,” Ellis said. “FIFA has enough of a pull and ability to influence change and I think it’s absolutely the right thing. I mean I don’t think there should be any discrimination period and to not allow women to go see football I think is, I just can’t even wrap my brain around it in terms of it being something. I think if FIFA can influence that, I think it’s great.”
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