“If the league is meant to be held without an audience, it would be better to hold it like a PlayStation.”
This remark by Peyman Yousefi, host of the television programme Varzesh va Mardom, was made in response to rumours that the upcoming Persian Gulf Pro League season would kick off behind closed doors. While it might initially sound like mere televised irony, behind the quip lies a reality that Iranian football has endured for four long years.
Throughout these years, the league was never suspended; rather, it was the spectators who were repeatedly purged from the game. Each time brought a new pretext: COVID-19 one day, ticketing platform glitches the next, followed by air pollution, stadium maintenance, or general security considerations. Yet the outcome remained unyielding: matches proceeded, but the stands remained starkly empty.
A review of decisions rendered by the Football Federation, the League Organisation, and security agencies from 2022 to the present demonstrates that barring entry to stadiums has not been an ad hoc measure, but a recurring, deliberate pattern – a framework in which official excuses shift, while the true decision-makers remain unchanged.
From Stadium Crises to Whispers of a Spectator-Free League
Iran’s Premier League is scheduled to kick off on Friday, August 14. This follows a previous season that was played entirely behind closed doors due to nationwide protests and ultimately left incomplete when conflict erupted. Now, familiar whispers are re-emerging.
Until recently, and “at least on the surface,” the narrative had nothing to do with fans. Beginning in late July, the central topic in Iranian football centred on stadium unreadiness. Officials first declared that Azadi Stadium would not be ready in time for the start of the 26th league season. Days later, representatives from the League Organisation and the Football Federation announced that Takhti Stadium was likewise incapable of hosting matches this season. Next came Dastgerdi Stadium in Ekbatan; despite possessing a healthy pitch, it was abruptly withdrawn from service under the guise of “turf replacement.”
The operational result was unmistakable: even if the league started on schedule, powerhouse clubs Esteghlal and Persepolis would be left without a single usable stadium in Tehran.
Yet alongside the official narrative of structural deficits, a parallel reality was taking shape. In late July, IranWire learned from informed sources that security agencies had formally placed holding club matches without spectators on their agenda. At the time, no official from the Football Federation or the League Organisation was willing to confirm the decision publicly.
Shortly thereafter, state-affiliated media began introducing the topic from a calculated angle. On July 30, the sports portal Varzesh 3 published a report citing “national security conditions” and referencing “ongoing strikes by the criminal United States against regions in southern Iran,” suggesting an increased likelihood that the league would commence without fans.
Varzesh 3 has a documented history of priming public opinion for state security mandates, including past bans on spectators and women entering stadiums. In that same report, the portal inadvertently highlighted another reality: Iranian football matches over recent months had already been conducted behind closed doors, with no guarantee that fans would return even by Week 1 of the new season.
However, details obtained by IranWire in prior weeks presented a different picture.
Informed sources identified the security apparatus’s acute fear of “anti-regime chants returning to stadium stands” and the “re-emergence of gatherings involving thousands of people” as the primary drivers behind the policy. These exact anxieties have historically led to match cancellations, the relocation of fixtures to distant municipalities, or the holding of entire stretches of the league in empty venues.
Shortly afterwards, Ali Tajernia, chairman of Esteghlal’s board of directors, publicly stated that he had “heard” the league would begin without spectators and urged the Football Federation to reconsider. While framed as a warning to sports administrators, his statement served to prepare the public for a decision that had been looming for weeks – a measure determined not within the headquarters of the Football Federation, but within security agencies.
Stadiums Closed Under Ever-Shifting Pretexts
The first widespread shutdown occurred in May 2022. The Ministry of Interior instructed the League Organisation to hold the final three weeks of the Premier League and the final five weeks of the First Division behind closed doors. The official justification was a resurgence of COVID-19 cases and non-compliance with health protocols in the stands. In reality, public protests over rising food prices and the elimination of preferential exchange rates were spreading across various cities.
The regime refused to allow stadiums with tens of thousands of attendees to transform into staging grounds for anti-government slogans. The political hypocrisy was so glaring that the First Vice President reversed the order just hours later – COVID-19 had transformed from a grave hazard into something harmless within a matter of hours, based strictly on political necessity.
Three months later, Week 1 of the new league season similarly opened behind closed doors. This time, the League Organisation cited “widespread technical failures in the electronic ticketing platform,” despite more than 12,000 tickets having already been sold for the match between Esteghlal and Sepahan.
The actual dilemma was not ticket sales, but how to handle the entry of female spectators. Following pressure from FIFA to lift the ban on women attending matches, the government chose to close the doors to everyone rather than open them to all. Women were barred, and men were kept outside to maintain the pretence of a uniform administrative directive.
The most extensive stadium lockout commenced in Week 7 of that season. On Saturday, October 1, 2022, amid the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, all matches were ordered to proceed without fans.
This shutdown persisted for 117 days. The League Organisation initially remained silent before eventually blaming air pollution and decisions by the Provincial Security Council. Yet matches continued to be played in the same polluted air; only the fans were excluded. The genuine motivation was the deep-seated fear of thousands of supporters uniting in the stands, chanting the name of “Mahsa Amini,” and echoing street protests on live national television. The authority to open the gates rested entirely with security councils rather than the Football Federation.
This policy did not end when street protests subsided. Pas Ghavamin Stadium in Ekbatan became a permanently empty venue beginning in the autumn of 2022. The official excuse focused on its geographical location and hosting logistics; the reality was Ekbatan’s prominent role in civil protests and the Security Council’s fear of any gathering in that district. In May 2024, during the critical final week of the championship race, Esteghlal was forced to play against Paykan at this same stadium without its fanbase.
Since 2022, the stated justifications have repeatedly shifted: coronavirus, ticketing glitches, air pollution, structural deficits, and geographical constraints. Yet the ultimate decision-maker has remained the state security apparatus, and the outcome has remained unchanged: the matches are played, but the people are erased.
Why the Regime Fears the Stands
From the tunnels of Azadi Stadium to the stands of Ekbatan, the regime in Iran has repeatedly lived through a shared experience over the years: it takes only a few thousand people sitting together for a football match to suddenly transform from a sporting event into a public platform. A stadium is perhaps the only place in Iran where tens of thousands of people gather without a political call to action, without a permit, and without prior organisation.
Any slogan that rises from the stands does not remain confined to the stadium; within seconds, it reaches millions of people through live television broadcasts or social media posts shared by spectators.
For the security apparatus, football stands are not merely seating arrangements for fans; they are a live, unpredictable media outlet that always carries the risk of spinning out of control.
Beginning in 2009, the Islamic Republic attempted to manage these crowds using a different tactic. IranWire previously revealed, in a report titled “How the IRGC Turned Thugs and Hooligans into Stadium Fan Leaders in Iran,” the role of senior IRGC Commander General Hossein Hamedani in recruiting thugs and hooligans to suppress protests following the 2009 election. The report detailed how some of the individuals recruited into security schemes by the IRGC and the Tharallah Headquarters were deployed in stadiums as organised fan leaders to control the stands and direct chants.
Despite these efforts, the project repeatedly failed. From chants of “Reza Shah, May Your Soul Rest in Peace” echoing through the tunnels of Azadi Stadium, to cheers for Ali Karimi, Ali Daei, and other figures shunned by the regime, to overt resistance to official narratives on Palestine, history has shown that even organised handlers could not guarantee total control over the crowd.
Perhaps this is why, whenever controlling the stands has proven too difficult, the simplest solution for the Islamic Republic’s security agencies has been not to manage the spectators, but to eliminate them from the stadiums entirely.
The Pretexts Shifted, but the Decision-Makers Remained the Same
COVID-19 was a pretext. The ticketing platform was a pretext. Air pollution was a pretext. Stadium turf was a pretext. Now, U.S. strikes have become the latest pretext.
Over the past four years, every time stadium doors were set to close, a new justification was produced. At times, officials claimed public health was at risk; on other occasions, they cited technical glitches in ticketing systems, heavy smog, or wartime conditions. Yet none of these justifications tells the full story.
When COVID-19 engulfed Iran, matches proceeded, but the public was forbidden from attending.
When toxic smog shrouded Iranian cities, players ran on the pitch in the same hazardous air, yet fans were locked outside.
When a stadium was deemed unprepared, the match was never cancelled; it was simply held behind closed doors. Even now, the regime’s primary concern does not appear to be public safety. The Iranian Football Federation itself announced on April 11, when the country was not yet fully under a formal ceasefire, that the remainder of the suspended Premier League season would resume with fans in attendance.
The issue was never truly about stadiums, weather, ticketing platforms, or foreign conflicts. The core concern has always been the fear of thousands gathering in one place, the potential echoing of protest slogans, and the total loss of control over the stands.
Throughout most of these years, the Football Federation and the League Organisation were not the actual decision-makers. They merely announced directives dictated from elsewhere.
The pretexts changed every time, but the authority holding the keys to the stadium gates remained exactly the same.