article_snippet: (CNN)FIFA president Sepp Blatter has told Iran to end Iran "intolerable" ban on women attending football matches.
article_snippet: its "intolerable" ban on women attending football matches was put in the spotlight at the Asian Cup in Australia earlier this year, when thousands of female Iranian fans watched thousands of female Iranian fans team without restriction.
article_snippet: At the match against Iraq, activists unfurled a banner showing the face of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman jailed for trying to watch a volleyball match against Brazil in 2014, and called for its "intolerable" ban on women attending football matches to end.
article_snippet: The measure was imposed following the 1979 Islamic Revolution because the idea of mixed crowds was deemed un-Islamic.
article_snippet: Iran is in the running to host the 2019 edition of the Asian tournament, for which the United Arab Emirates is also bidding.
article_snippet: But its "intolerable" ban on women attending football matches is widely expected to scupper Iran chances of securing the event.
article_snippet: A collective stadium ban still applies to women in Iran, despite the existence of a thriving women's football organization.
article_snippet: Hence my appeal to the Iranian authorities -- open Iran's football stadiums to women.
article_snippet: During last year's football World Cup, CNN reported how fans in Iran gathered to watch games in venues that defied a ban on public screenings.
article_snippet: At one coffee shop in the capital, Tehran, the tense game against Argentina -- a game Iran lost only to an injury-time Lionel Messi goal -- was watched by a large mixed crowd.
article_snippet: Hoardings advertising the World Cup throughout Tehran that summer had featured no pictures of women.
article_snippet: And state TV broadcasts of matches employed a delay of several seconds in order for images of female fans deemed too racy to be censored.
highlights_snippet: Thousands of Iranian women watched games at Asian Cup in Australia .
  
highlights_snippet: Protests held at tournament called for ban to be ended .