Sahar Khodayari ‘s death has left a profound mark on Iran. “The girl in blue” in the colors of her favorite team, Tehran’s Esteghlal, died in hospital on September 8, 2019, from burns after setting herself on fire in front of a court in the Iranian capital when she learned that she faced a six-month sentence for contempt for having entered the stadium last March and being discovered.
But the minister of sport, after the many national and international controversies, has opened to a partial “revolution”:
All the necessary preparations have been made so that women, in the first period only for international matches,can enter football stadiums. Separate entrances , stands and toilets have been prepared at the Azadi stadium in Tehran, where Iran plays most of its matches and will host World Cup qualifiers from next month, ” he added. Security has also been strengthened “to allow women to enter and exit safely”.
The lifting of the ban, previously removed only occasionally, is expected starting from the match that the men’s national football team will play at the Azadi stadium in Tehran against Cambodia for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers in Qatar on 10 October . These days theAnsa , on its website, has published a long article reconstructing the story of the first woman ever to have set foot in a male-only stadium: it happened 22 years ago and Nadia Pizzuti, at the time the Italian correspondent of the agency, on 22 November 1997 managed to enter to tell the play-off between Iran and Australia , valid for the 1998 World Cup. Below is part of the article that you can read entirely here :
One woman, the first, among 120 thousand men to cheer Iran. Twenty-two years before the historic opening of Tehran to fans inside the stadiums, she was an Italian – then ANSA correspondent – who challenged and pierced the defenses of the ayatollahs in the football field. “Thinking about that day, today I was moved”, says Nadia Pizzuti. First woman in the world, that November 22, 1997 she managed to enter a football stadium in Iran and today she does not hide a hint of emotion by commenting on the turning point by the Islamic authorities who announced that “women, initially only for international matches , will be able to enter football stadiums “. The international protests following the death of the fan Sahar Khodayari have had their weight, but the battle for gender equality in Iran starts from afar. Maybe even from that day on,
“Today reading the news I had a start – says the journalist, correspondent for several years in Tehran – I went back in a flash to that day, to that unique and beautiful experience”. That afternoon, among the more than 120,000 fans crowded in the stands of the Tehran stadium there was also Nadia who today remembers her adventure in this way: “As a matter of practice, I requested accreditation from the Iranian Football Federation which replied that it would not be possible. But I did not lose heart and did the same thing with the Ministry of Culture, which gave me the same answer, adding however to present myself at the gates with the fax sent to the authorities. And so I did. Together with the collaborator and translator I arrived at the gates of the stadium “. “Nemishieh”. “I have a permit from the ministry.” “Away”. “Let me see the regulations or call your superior”, the exchange he remembers then with the nervous head of security, while in the meantime the game had begun. In the end, Nadia says, “having overcome several barriers, answered vaguely inquisitive questions and frantic consultations via radio, they finally gave me the green light, despite my guide being terrified. ‘Let’s go, here it ends badly’, she repeated ”. “Perhaps the threat, the next day, to denounce the fact in an article – Pizzuti wrote then – magically spread a red carpet under my feet, so much so that I became the first woman to be able to attend a football match in Iran since the days of the Revolution “. answered vaguely inquisitive questions and frantic radio consultations, they finally gave me the green light, despite my guide being terrified. ‘Let’s go, here it ends badly’, he repeated ”. “Perhaps the threat, the next day, to denounce the fact in an article – Pizzuti wrote then – magically spread a red carpet under my feet, so much so that I became the first woman to be able to attend a football match in Iran since the days of the Revolution “. answered vaguely inquisitive questions and frantic radio consultations, they finally gave me the green light, despite my guide being terrified. ‘Let’s go, here it ends badly’, he repeated ”. “Perhaps the threat, the next day, to denounce the fact in an article – Pizzuti wrote then – magically spread a red carpet under my feet, so much so that I became the first woman to be able to attend a football match in Iran since the days of the Revolution “.
“So, between an ‘Iran, Iran’ and a ‘Holy Ali, help us’, I finally reached the press gallery where I found a lot of collaboration, complicit smiles and no hostile attitude.
The full article
