Iranian authorities have barred Irish women from attending this week's World Cup qualifying play-off between Iran and the Republic of Ireland in Tehran, a press report said today.
"The presence of these women in the stadium has been ruled out," said Mr Shahrokh Jahanshahi, the deputy Tehran governor - quoted in the conservative Jomhuri-Eslamipaper.
The confirmation of the ban for the 300 Irish female football fans expected to attend the match comes just one day after the conservative Kayhanpaper, citing an unnamed informed source, said the trip by the group of Irish women to Iran had been cancelled.
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The "trip by a group of Irish women to Iran to watch the return match between Iran's national football team and Ireland has been cancelled," the paper said.
At the same time, Jomhuri-Eslamiyesterday said the presence of Irish women in the match may prompt "fierce reactions" from influential clerics in Iran's holy city of Qom.
But an official at the Irish embassy in Tehran expressed surprise, saying no information had been received by the embassy.
"This is the first we are hearing of it," the official said. "If it's true, it would be big news, because many of them are coming".
A crowd of 110,000 is expected to turn out for Thursday's second leg of the play-off. This would have been the first time that foreign women fans would have been able to watch a match alongside men in Iran since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Iranian women are barred from attending football matches.
AFP