Iran: Men vs. women match draws punishment

An Iranian football club said Monday it has suspended three officials for allowing the club's female team and its youth male squad to play against one another - the first such match since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Esteghlal, one of Iran's top two football clubs, said its disciplinary committee suspended two officials for a year each while a third person was suspended for six months. A fourth official was fined, a report posted on the club's Web site said.

It was the first time in the 30 years of Iran's Islamic establishment that men and women played football together. Iran's strict Islamic rules ban any physical contact between unrelated men and women.

The club said the match was held at Marqoobkar stadium in south Tehran. It didn't provide further details but newspaper reports said it took place Jan. 20.

Vatan-e-Emrooz daily said the men's youth team beat the women's side 7-0 in a game described as 'historic.' Video clips recorded on cell phones were used as evidence against the suspended officials who initially denied the game was held, the paper said.

According to the club, Mohammad Khorramgah, the club's technical manager, was suspended for a year and fined 50 million rials ($5,000). The only woman among the suspended - Saeedeh Pournader, head coach of the female team _ also got a year's suspension. Mostafa Ardestani, head coach of the youth male squad got the six month's suspension and a 20 million rial ($2,000) fine.

Mixed matches virtually unheard of

Prominent Iranian footballer and manager of the club's football academy, Ali Reza Mansourian, got a written rebuke and a fine of 50 million rials ($5,000), the club said.

Mixed football games were virtually unheard of even before the Islamic revolution.

Kamran Khatibi, a football writer at Kayhan sports daily, said he doesn't remember a "football game ever having been played between women and men in Iran _ not even during Shah Reza Pahlavi's era."

Esteghlal, known as "The Blues" for its team colors, along with Persepolis, known as "The Reds" are Iran's two top teams.

Iranian women are barred from attending football games when male teams play. The matches have an all-male audience and fans often chant crude curses to the rival team.

However, foreign women are occasionally allowed at men's matches, purportedly because they don't understand the language and the cursing. In 2001, a group of Irish women fans was permitted to attend a World Cup qualifier between Iran and Ireland. Only women can attend games when women's teams play.

In 2006, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surprised his conservative backers by deciding that women could attend soccer games, saying the women's presence would "improve soccer-watching manners and promote a healthy atmosphere."

But Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, disagreed. As he has final say on all matters in Iran, his stance held – no women in the stands, not even in the segregated section when men play.