Iran: Stadium Seating Cap Endangers Women

FIFA Should Urgently Overturn Discriminatory Ticket Limit of 4,600 Women, says Human Rights Watch

 Iran’s plan to cap the number of women who can attend a football World Cup qualifier match in Tehran is discriminatory, deceptive, and dangerous, Human Rights Watch said today.  

Tickets to the historic match between Iran and Cambodia on October 10 – the first in 40 years where women could legally buy tickets – went on sale Thursday, October 3. The Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) estimates that more than 3,500 tickets were bought by women, and that as tickets are released they are “sold out in minutes.”  

On September 22, 2019, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said women will finally be allowed into Tehran’s Azadi (“Freedom”) stadium to watch the match on October 10, which was FIFA’s deadline by which “women have to be allowed into football stadiums in Iran for all football matches.” However, Iranian authorities have capped the number of women who can attend at 4,600 out of a stadium capacity of 100,000 seats.

“Iran’s ban on half the population attending football matches has led to women and girls risking arrest, jail, and even their lives to challenge it,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “Any concessions by FIFA to limit the number of women who can attend stadiums only empowers Iran’s hardliners who have previously pre-selected women to attend while keeping the discriminatory restrictions in place.”  

The effective five percent quota on seats for women contravenes FIFA’s constitution, statutes, and its human rights policy. Article 4 of its statutes states that discrimination against women “is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion” of the FIFA member. FIFA’s human rights policy places “particular emphasis on identifying and addressing differential impacts based on gender and on promoting gender equality.”

Read the full article from Human Rights Watch