In a first for Iran, hundreds of women attend a major soccer match in Tehran

Amin M. Jamali/Getty Images(NEW YORK) —  After a nearly forty-year ban, hundreds of Iranian women were allowed to attend an international soccer final at a stadium in Tehran on Saturday, where they managed to secure nearly one percent of the seats at Azadi Stadium.

Saturday’s event — the Asian Champions League final pitting an Iranian team known as Persepolis against a Japanese squad called the Kashima Antlers — saw the most significant female presence at a top soccer match in Iran since the Islamic revolution in the late 1970s.

Iranian conservatives have persistently been opposed to women attending live sports matches,