Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's Offside is about women football supporters in his country, where women were not allowed to enter football stadiums, trying to watch a World Cup qualifying match. Iranian women are barred from attending football games reportedly "because they're not allowed to see strange men with bare legs and arms or be exposed to the foul language of the crowd." The movie was released in 2006.
Sixteen years later, while Panahi languishes in prison, Iranian women were allowed to attend a professional domestic football match in Tehran for the first time in 40 years.
According to reports, five hundred women were granted access to Tehran's Azadi stadium to watch a league match between Tehran-based Esteghlal FC and visiting team Sanat Mes Kerman FC, from the city of Kerman, the country's semi-official state news agency Fars said on Thursday.
Several Iranian websites, according to BBC, said the decision to allow women into the game on Thursday came after football's world governing body Fifa sent a letter to Iranian authorities calling on them to permit more women into stadiums. Prohibiting women from games goes against international football statutes.