Women were not generally allowed to attend men's matches as spectators for around 40 years, from the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 until games in 2018[1] and 2019.

They started to train more seriously as sport magazines published the news of their progress, then gradually a huge number of female fans arose to support the team.

In 1971, competition was organised by a women's sport magazine and the travel company Scandinavian Airlines System (S.A.S) under the supervision of the Football Federation, for that occasion the Italy women's national football team was invited to Iran and had two games against Taj and a team called Tehran in the Amjadieh stadium.

After hearing about her strengths in playing futsal, the women's president of the Iranian Football Federation as well as the later head coach of the first national team since the Revolution, called on her and asked her to stay.

[4] She is better known to be the first American Iranian championing women's rights to play soccer in the Middle East, specifically in Iran.

However, a setback occurred when FIFA banned Iran from a second-round qualifier against Jordan in mid-2011 because of their having to wear hijab, which was enforced by the government.

The idea of a "football revolution" is that the game itself can be used as a part of the secularization of Iran and frame women's rights movements in the country.

[citation needed] When the Iranian football team narrowly defeated Australia in the 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification on November 29, 1997, millions of Iranians celebrated the victory by dancing and singing in the streets, despite multiple government warnings against any secular-type celebrations.

[16][17] A film by Jafar Panahi, Offside (2006), is about a group of young women who dress as boys in order to watch football at a stadium.

In December 2007 the vice president of the Iranian Olympic Committee, Abdolreza Savar, issued a memorandum to all sporting federations about the "proper behavior of male and female athletes" and that "severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions" both local and abroad.

[20] Thus, of the 53 Iranian athletes in the Beijing Olympics, there were only three women: Sara Khoshjamal Fekri (taekwondo), Najmeh Abtin (shooting) and Homa Hosseini (rowing).

[21] Women were generally not allowed to attend men's football matches for decades after the Iranian revolution in 1979,[22] ostensibly to protect them from inappropriate male behaviour.

[24] On 10 November 2018, hundreds of women attended the 2018 AFC Champions League Final 2nd leg at the 80,000-seat Azadi Stadium.

[1] On 9 November, Fatma Samoura, Secretary General of FIFA, had said she would ask the Iranian government to end the ban on women’s entry to sport stadiums.