Male/female soccer game in Iran sparks attention, punishment

When I read about this yesterday, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

On January 20, Iran held its a mixed soccer game – the first of its kind – since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The game was intended to be a secret – but some cell phone footage was leaked, and punishments were handed to three Iranian soccer club officials.

Check out this AP article for more.

The Jan. 20 game between the club’s female team and its youth male team in Tehran was the first time in the 30 years of Iran’s Islamic establishment that males and females played soccer together, observers said.

The youth team beat the women 7-0 in a game Vatan-e-Emrooz described as ‘historic.’

According to this Fox soccer news article, Iran’s strict Islamic rules ban any physical contact between unrelated men and women, and Iranian women are even banned from attending soccer games when male teams play.

Surprisingly, my colleagues on the male sports blogs covered this story, led by Sports by Brooks:

“Women’s soccer has only recently been widely accepted in Iran. A national women’s team was formed in 2005, but already has had some success in Asia, nearly qualifying for last year’s Asian Cup finals. As you can see from the photo above, the Iranian players have to wear long sleeves, pants, and a head scarf. And home matches are attended only by women.”

It followed with a link from Ball Hype. I’m shocked – they don’t usually cover women’s sports.

The officials of the game – a coach and two managers – first denied the game took place, but video clips on cell phones of the game were used as evidence against them.

This story (and subsequent research) has challenged me to write a series about Muslim women and sports.

So look for more to come..