Even the faintest praise for the Iranian Football Association as the clock has ticked towards Thursday’s World Cup qualifier with Cambodia, which will welcome around 3,500 women to Tehran’s Azadi Stadium after their 40-year exile, has been pretty galling.
Because, in reality, women are anything but welcome in the somewhat ironically named ‘freedom’ stadium. The decision to creak open the gates is a reluctant one.
Related: Iranian women allowed to watch football at stadium for first time in decades
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