The 'historical' event I experienced

Last Thursday a friend of mine called in the morning and said:" Today there will be a female football match. Will you come?". Just a bit dizzy of a long sleep, I said in a big surprise:" What?!? A female football match? Joking?" Well, after speaking for a few minutes she could help me up to comprehend that it was not a joke and definitely there would be a football match between Iranian national team and Germans. Heh, I didn't even know that we had a female football team at all.
In the afternoon, we joined tens of women sitting on their seats in Ararat football stadium to watch the competition between Iranians and Germans. The weather was nice, the atmosphere was happy ,and everything went on just joyful and pleasant BUT I couldn't overcome my sadness squeezing my heart (too emotional?). The reason? Well, we have a population of 70 millions and we are famous to be crazy for football. Wherever you go, you can see kids and teens playing football in whatsoever place they can find to install their goals playing with a rubber ball. The so-called goal is usually a pair of slippers set with a distance of one meter from each other or a pair of stones playing the role of a 'goal'. Number of dailies and magazines on football is numerous.
The fever for football has been in this country as far as I remember, but a couple of years ago, when our national team succeeded to ascend to world championship for the first time, it just heated up. We beat Australia in a fiery match and stepped forward to the world championship. The triumph was celebrated by millions of people who jubilated in the streets in big groups.
I don't know what goes on in other countries, but in Iran, the football fans are not just males. You can see many women and girls who die for it. They follow the news very carefully, know the players and have the same fever as men. So, isn't it sad to see that the match we watched on Thursday was the first ever after the Revolution? Speaking to the women sitting around, they told me that female football matches began about 5-6 years ago inside enclosed places- footsall. Surprising to say, our team could win the 2nd rank in recent competition of the Western Asian countries.
Another bothering discrimination is that Iranian women can not enter the stadiums to watch the games and encourage their favorite teams. Just recently a group of vanguard females has been trying to break this taboo. Just once, a few of them were let in. The second time, they faced riot police. Some even were beaten. Nobody knows why women are banned of watching football matches in the stadiums and when you investigate on the issue you just hear odd. The officials say :" Stadiums are not good places for women to go. They are hooligans there. They insult each other and that's not proper for women to witness it." That's nonsense of course. When the same women have to deal with these very men on the streets, at work, on buses, in taxis, in shops, etc , then how on earth this kind of justifications can ever be true?
The funny thing about Thursday match was banning the men entering the stadium. Nobody could understand the reason because all of us and both teams had scarves on heads. That showed that the organizers had to act so cautiously and conservatively to let the event go on as smoothely as possible. They didn't want troubles becasue they wanted these events could be repeated.

The very surprising news we are hearing these days is that Ahmadi-nejad, our hardliner president has ordered the football federation to help the women to enter the stadiums. The same conservative clergies who supported him to come up to power, are opposing him very firmly on the issue. They repeat the same things we have been hearing for years and have demanded the president to revise his decision.
Well, this issue which to many westerners has no meaning at all, is so important for us- Iranians. To me, it is quite a step forward to a better situation for us- women. Although we have a very very long way to go on, that's really happy if we could ever go to stadiums. That's not just a football match we will watch, that's breaking a very tough taboo shadowing for years over us. More pictures.