February 21-2014
Seven female soccer players have been fired from Iran’s new professional league for women after it was discovered that really weren’t female after all, so now the governing association is starting tests for every player.
The Iranian Football Federation acted after it was revealed that several leading players—including four on the national women’s team—were either men who had not completed sex change operations, or were suffering from sexual development disorders.
Gender change operations are legal in Iran according to a fatva, or religious decree, issued decades ago by Ayatollah Khomeini. The regime actually promotes such operations and pays for them, viewing the operations as correcting birth defects.
Ahmad Hashemian, head of the federation’s medical committee, said the clubs are now required to carry out medical examinations to establish the gender of their players before signing them to contracts. But the federation, clearly not trusting the clubs, will send out its own examiners to make backup checks.
Those unable to prove they are female will be barred from taking part in the women’s league until they undergo medical treatment, he said.
“If these people can solve their problems through surgery and be in a position to receive the necessary medical qualifications, they will then be able to participate in [women’s] soccer,” Hashemian told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
Sex changes are commonly carried out in phases in Iran, with the full procedure taking up to two years and including hormone therapy before the full gender transformation is completed.
Seven players have already had their contracts terminated under the federation’s gender test directive, according to IRNA.
Concerns about the sexuality of some players are believed to have been first raised four years ago when one women’s team voiced suspicions about an opposition goalkeeper.
Soccer is popular among young women in Iran despite—or perhaps because of—religious rules that bar them from entering stadiums to watch matches between male teams.
