FIFA President Gianni Infantino has welcomed the attendance of women and girls at a Hazfi Cup soccer match in the Iranian city of Mashhad on Sunday as an “encouraging development”.

With few exceptions, female fans have been banned from sports events in the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution and FIFA faced calls for the men’s team to be banned from the 2022 World Cup over the issue.

Infantino has preferred a policy of personal engagement with the country’s leadership and hailed the access to the Imam Reza Stadium for some women and girls as another step forward.

“I was very pleased to learn about the attendance of women and girls at an Iranian Hazfi Cup game between Nassaji Mazandaran and Shahid Ghandi Yazd,” he said in a post on social media on Monday.

“This is an encouraging development following last December’s Iranian top-flight match … in Isfahan, where 45,000 women and girls were in attendance, and 2023’s Tehran Derby when 3,000 women and girls were present in the stadium.”

Open Stadiums, the women’s rights campaign group that led the calls for Iran to be excluded from the last World Cup, said only limited numbers of female fans were allowed into Sunday’s match between the two lower-league clubs.

They also noted the match was staged at the same stadium where Human Rights Watch reported that dozens of women were forcibly prevented from watching a World Cup qualifier between Iran and Lebanon in 2022.

Last year’s top-flight match between Sepahan and Persepolis in Isfahan was played in front of a crowd made up exclusively of women and girls.

That Iranian Football Federation order to exclude male fans came after a Sepahan cheerleader led insulting chants about female Persepolis fans at a previous clash between the clubs at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium in May 2024.

Infantino said he hoped to see more progress in opening up soccer matches to everybody in Iran and other parts of the world where access is restricted.

“FIFA’s vision is to make football … available to everyone in all parts of the world because our game belongs to anyone who wishes to experience it,” he added.

“As we continue our dialogue and efforts with relevant authorities across the world to make football even more global, I hope to see these developments continue in a positive direction.”

Iran have already qualified for next year’s World Cup in North America.