Photo of the Day: Love Knows no Boundaries

October 9th, 2008 | by: Laurie |

I opened a can of worms last week by posting a photo and pointing out that a particular footy crowd was entirely male. Because of this, I feel compelled to also post this one, which clearly shows that love of the beautiful game knows no boundaries of gender or culture.

These are fans of the Iranian futsal team in its match against the Czech Republic in the Futsal World Cup. Iran won, 3-2.

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mele419

Laurie, how dare you compare Iranians to Qatar…ians?
That’s so racist and mean!
(kidding, of course!)
http://galatasaray.theoffside.com Musab

Guess them Iranian girls like their futsal…
Ebrahim

Haha!
http://inter.theoffside.com/files/2008/05/inter-derby-day.jpg Johonna

I am sooooo staying out of this one.
http://www.lastkick.com Afshin Afshar

Football has a big following amongst Iranian women. I know because growing up I had to hear my sister’s trash talking twice every year when the big Tehran derby between Perspolis (my team) and Taj, now Esteghlal, FCs came around. We supported opposing sides.

In my family almost all the women were football junkies especially when it came to the national team.

I ave not been back to Iran for 30 years now, but I still have to hear my sisters trash talking whenever her team defeats mine (the last three have been ties, thank goodness!).

Today, Iranian women are banned from attending football games in stadiums, so desperate female football fans disguise themselves as men and sneak into the stadiums. Unfortunately, very often a few get found out and arrested. There was an award winning Iranian movie titled “Offside” that was about this exact topic. Needless to say that it was banned in Iran!

I don’t know who these women are, but I hope one day their counterparts in Iran gain the right to attend the games just like their male counterparts in the country.
Nolan

Didn’t they recently give women that right?
http://www.lastkick.com Afshin Afshar

No, oddly enough female supporters of the visiting teams (i.e. Japan, Korea, etc.) get to attend, but not Iranian women! A couple of years ago. a number of women protested but the government security forces quickly broke their protest applying overly harsh physical force.