Forough Alaei

Forough Alaei

Women follow the AFC Champions League Cup match between Iran’s Persepolis and Japan’s Kashima Antlers from a segregated section of a stand at the Azadi Stadium, Tehran, on 10 November 2018.

In Iran, there are restrictions on female fans entering football stadiums. As football is the nation’s most popular sport, the ban has been a controversial public issue. On 1 March 2018, FIFA president Gianni Infantino met with the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, to address the issue. Social-media groups also put the president under pressure, and on 20 June a ruling allowed Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to admit selected groups of women for international matches. The concession to women fans applied only to international matches, and after a senior judicial officer objected in October, it was withdrawn. On 10 November, the FIFA president, who was attending the AFC Cup match in Tehran, asked to be shown that women were being allowed to attend. A selection of women were permitted to enter, though many others were barred.

Forough Alaei (b. 1989) is an Iranian photojournalist and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on social issues and the lives of women in Iran. Originally trained in law and a keen painter, she began photography in 2015 and quickly turned to documentary storytelling.

Alaei is known internationally for her series on female football fans, in which she disguised herself as a boy to access stadiums barred to women, and for her Time magazine “Heroes of the Year” cover highlighting the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022. Her long-term project New Face of Iran documents youth challenging social taboos and has been exhibited widely in major media and galleries worldwide.