麻豆约拍

A year ago, thousands of Iranian women cheered on as their national team played Cambodia in the 2022 World Cup qualifier at the Azadi Stadium. This was the first time that women had been allowed to watch a match in almost 40 years. Women had been banned from stadiums where men were playing since just after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with only a few exceptions.

Three thousand five hundred tickets to the match had been allocated for women spectators. The move to allow women back in stadiums followed the death of a fan who had set herself alight after being arrested for trying to attend a match.

Maryam Shojaei ran a campaign, first anonymously and later publicly, that led to Iran allowing women to attend men's football matches and she recalls how it felt to see women in the stadium for that match.

Photo: Iranian women watching football at Azadi Stadium (Getty Images)