TEHERAN - Senior clergymen have agreed to allow women's soccer matches to take place in Iran where a strict Islamic code of conduct has so far prevented female participation in the sport, the weekly magazine Etelaat Haftegi reported in its latest issue Thursday. Etelaat Haftegi further quoted women sports experts as saying that from may this year, four women's teams will be formed and that arrangements will be made to send women for coaching and to refereeing courses abroad.

Football for women is permissible ... but there should be no male audience, Ayatollah Sanei, a senior Iranian clergyman, told the publication in reply to the question of whether women's football in Iran was feasible. And nobody is entitled to bother them under any circumstances, the Ayatollah added, referring to opponents of women sports in Iran. Another ayatollah, Makarem Shirazi, from the Holy city of Qom, told the weekly that women's football could be practised within its own limitations, namely in front of an audience made up of only females.

The issue of sports for women has for many years been controversial in Iran with female activists, such as Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, searching for religiously acknowledged ways to legalise the issue. As women in Iran are obliged to wear a cloak and scarf for hiding body contours and hair in front of strange men's eyes, taking part in sports in the international arena is almost impossible for Iranian women, except in fields such as shooting or chess.

The Iranian women sports organziation, headed by Faezeh Hashemi, started in 1993 the Islamic women Olympics in which women from Islamic countries can compete in all fields but only as referees or in front of an exclusively female audience. Football is the most popular sport in Iran and the national team's attendance in this year's World cup in France has boosted its popularity among women as well.

(AFP)