July 19, 2019
FIFA is mounting pressure on Iran to admit women to stadiums before the World Cup elimination matches begin this fall—and a campaign by Iranian women to press FIFA to keep up that pressure is being led by the sister of Iran’s team captain, Masud Shojaei.
The campaign is asking FIFA to ban Iran from World Cup qualifying unless the country changes the law.
The women leading the movement say they share the same passion as male fans for Team Melli, yet believe only a serious threat of exclusion from the World Cup by FIFA will lead to the end of a prohibition that has lasted for four decades.
Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, wrote a letter last month to Mehdi Taj, the president of Iran’s soccer federation, asking him to provide an answer no later than July 15 about what “concrete steps” the federation would take to ensure that Iranian women could attend World Cup qualification games, which start in September. The deadline passed without a response.
“I ask FIFA to put more pressure, and by pressure it means sanctions, right?” said Maryam Shojaei, who has campaigned the past five years by brandishing banners protesting the men-only rule when Iran plays outside the country, including at the World Cup in Russia last summer. “There has to be a consequence for the Iranian federation. That could be suspension of Iranian football.”
So far, FIFA has shown little appetite for such a harsh penalty for a violation the organization describes as against its “most basic principles.”
The New York Times reported July 15 that Maryam Shojaei had identified herself publicly for the first time as the team captain’s sister. Shojaei, a Canadian citizen, said she began her campaign after she saw the popularity of the Iranian national team among women at the 2014 World Cup. She told The New York Times her protests have nothing to do with her brother. She did not tell him that she had traveled to Russia, where she protested at the 2018 World Cup as the founder of My Fundamental Right. Separately, Masud Shojaei has spoken out about the issue at home.
The lack of progress is embarrassing for Infantino, who attended a game in Tehran in November 2018 with senior Iranian officials. For that game, Iran lifted the prohibition, allowing a few hundred selected women to attend. Infantino described the event as a momentous sign of progress, while activists described it as a stunt, no more than an exercise designed to fool a credulous foreign dignitary.
Shojaei said she told FIFA’s secretary general, Fatma Samoura, ahead of the game that the Iranians would use Infantino’s appearance at the game at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to put on a “show.” She also presented Samoura with a petition that had more than 200,000 signatures.
“Without getting guarantees that women could buy tickets and by sitting there with women who were placed there for him to see, he took part in a charade that was a terrible betrayal of Iranian women who have been begging him in writing for years to act,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “Every Iranian woman knew that this was a charade and they wouldn’t be allowed in.”
Infantino’s letter expressed alarm at incidents surrounding an exhibition game between Iran and Syria June 6. Women trying to attend the game said they were not only detained by security for several hours, but some were beaten.
Shojaei, who moved to Canada in 2007 and became a citizen in 2012, has had her banners confiscated while overseas, including in Russia, where FIFA, which has adopted a new human rights guidelines, had provided express permission for her to attend with its delegation.
“I talked to two well-respected clergy, and they said it’s nothing to do with Islam,” she said.
The ban, which has been extended to volleyball and basketball, provides a stark contrast with other cultural arenas in Iran, including theaters, where people of different genders freely mix.
Soccer’s popularity, said Shojaei, means the threat of a ban from World Cup qualifiers would most likely lead to the lifting of a ban that went into effect not long after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.