The complex reality of Iran’s women’s football
Iran’s national women’s football team only ranks 63rd in FIFA’s latest women’s ranking in June 2024 and women’s football in Iran has been oscillating between restrictions, a passion for the sport and participating in international competitions. Iran has only started to appear on the international football stage in September 2005.
American-Iranian Katayoun Khosrowyar first became a player and then the coach of the Iranian national women’s U-19 football team. “When I arrived, there was no football team, no pitches or coaches, nothing. Then within a few months, there was a national team and all the levels in between – grassroots tournaments, FIFA supporting Iranian women to participate in competitions, all these gyms started opening up like mushrooms”, Khosrowyar tells Bethany Burgoyne from Reform the Funk.
Head coach Katayoum Khosrowyar at Nike New York Headquarters on March 09,2019.
Under Islamic state law wearing a hijab is mandatory for women in Iran. As a result, they can’t pursue sports without a hijab. FIFA suspended the Iranian team for wearing a hijab at the Olympic qualifications in 2011. This sudden end of competition led to Khosrowyar’s campaign Let Us Play, so that Iranian women would be allowed to play football wearing hijab. This plea was granted by FIFA in 2014.
The U-19 coach explains that wearing a hijab “became a symbolic movement for me – it wasn’t a matter of being forced, it was more about saying I’m doing this to show that it’s possible for a couple of other hundred women to play.”
Yet, other Iranian players regard the hijab more like a restriction. For example, goal keeper Zahra Khajavi tells the German TV-channel ZDF that “the hijab comes as a disadvantage, especially when it is hot and humid, and when it rains, we carry more weight.”
Players of the Iranian national team entering the stadium.
Despite FIFA’s official permission for Iranian’s women to become part of international football competitions, the Iranian regime hasn’t supported the women’s football teams enough. “They wouldn’t give us the budget for camps and they wouldn’t give us the budget even for our jerseys but whenever we proved to them by beating or by tying against top teams in Asia and Europe, that’s where the trust began”, Khosrowyar tells Boise Highlights.
Yet new challenges arrived in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic affecting international football and bringing the activities of the Iranian national women’s teams to a standstill.
Continuing to play football against all odds
Maryam Irandoost became coach of the Iranian national women’s (senior) team in 2021. She started from scratch and chose players and equipment herself. Furthermore, Irandoost arranged friendly games in the Adazi-sports facilities, Teheran’s main stadium. Despite these efforts Iran’s regime prohibited Nosrat Irandoost, Maryam’s father, from working as a technical director for the women’s team. The regime didn’t want him to see the women playing from a close proximity. Friendly games were abandoned due to the resistance of the regime.
But there is talent too. Futsal is another example. In 2018, Iran’s women won the Asian Futsal Championships.
The Iranian Women’s Futsal team celebrates their victory in the AFC Women’s Futsal Championship in May 2018.
However, this success doesn’t mean that female players can earn sufficiently in Iran. Azam Akhondi, member of Iran’s National Futsal team, has played in the Maldivian and Iraqi futsal leagues to make a living.
Fighting for more rights but restrictions remain
Although women’s national teams could be seen at tournaments, female spectators were banned from going to the stadium to watch a men’s game. According to Iranian religious conservatives such visits would be immoral. FIFA put pressure on the Iranian Football Association and for a short time, women were allowed to enter stadiums. Sport journalist Raha Purbakhsh says to TRT World that “it’s been almost 25 years since I last came here and that was with my dad. I was seven years old. And now, it’s the first time for me going to the Azadi Stadium as a woman.”
Football fans at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran cheering for their national team.
In September 2022 the death of Jina Mahsa Amini sparked wide protests throughout Iran. Amini died in hospital after having been arrested and reportedly beaten by morality police during a hijab control in Tehran. Protests emerged throughout the country. The regime reacted harshly.
Iranians protesting after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
Some athletes have chosen to flee abroad, such as former goalkeeper Hamideh Hamidi now living in Germany. She points out to Neue Züricher Zeitung that “during my first weeks in Germany I felt being under surveillance. I know that we are even been controlled here in Europe. And this information could be used against our families back in Iran.”
Challenging times for women’s football in Iran
All of these restraints haven’t destroyed the passion of Iranian girls and women for the sport of football. Futsal national player Azam Akhondi runs her own fitness studio in the Iranian city of Isfahan offering training facilities for girls. Officially women are only allowed to train in the morning separately from men in the training facilities. Azam Akhondi told journalist Jörg-Hendrik Brase: “All of us have to do a second job in order to survive.”
The current national coach Maryam Azmoon wrote letters to football teams in 10 countries asking for possible friendly games. None of these teams accepted her request. Although FIFA opposes the restrictive measures of the Iranian regime, not much was done in favour of Iranian’s women’s football and futsal before the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in 2023.
Coach Maryam Azmoon at the AFC Women’s Asian Olympic Qualifier match between Iran and the Philippines in Perth, Australia on 1st November 2023.
Although the Iranian national team missed the qualification for the Women’s World Cup, the players wanted to qualify for the Olympic Games in 2024. Their aim for more visibility continues.
In the end they will not make it to Paris next year. In the press conference in Perth before the match against Australia Maryam Azmoon said that “If I have to be honest with you, we have only seen these players on TV, and we know that they are very strong.”
Iran’s women lost 0-2 against the Matildas. The team’s future is still looking uncertain.