Of football and the 'fairer sex'

When politics meet football: Iranian women cheering during the World Cup Qatar 2022 Group C qualifier game between Iran and Cambodia at the Azadi stadium in the capital Tehran last month for the first time after being banned from football matches for decades. – AFP

OCT 10 was a landmark night for the disparate nations of Cambodia and Iran. Facing off in Teheran for their World Cup 2022 qualifier, Iran inflicted the Cambodian national team's heaviest ever defeat as 14-0 winners.

But despite the game being a foregone conclusion between Asia's highest-ranked side and minnows Cambodia, this innocuous match up was covered by major news outlets worldwide, carrying a significance that reverberated internationally.This is because present in the Azadi Stadium were 3,500 Iranian women who could freely attend a football match for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.