FOOTBALL TO THE PEOPLE, FOOTBALL TO WOMEN: PRESENTATION OF FOOTBALL SCARVES AND THE SCREENING OF THE FILM ''OFFSIDE'' BY J. PANAHI
Time: Monday, April 28, at 9 PM
Place: Local committee (MO) S.S.Kranjčević, Kranjčevićeva 4a, Zagreb
The slogan "Football to the people, football to women" has been calling for more equality and sport accessible to all, from the wall of the stadium in Kranjčevićeva Street. In cooperation with illustrator Ena Jurov and journalist Ivana Perić, we intervened on the old mural of the former supporters’ group White Angels by adding women to it – female football players and supporters, domestic and foreign.
That mural is the only place in Zagreb’s public space featuring Maca Maradona, Yugoslavia's most successful female football player, Asisat Oshoala, one of the greatest Nigerian, African, and world footballers of all time, Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir from Iceland, who took the French football club Lyon to court, forcing it to pay her the salary she did not receive when pregnant, Sahar Khodayari, who committed suicide in 2019 in fear of being imprisoned for trying to enter a football stadium disguised as a man, Megan Rapinoe, American football player and LGBTIQ sport pioneer activist, and Nadia Nadim, a refugee from Afghanistan, who became one of the best European football players and a surgeon in Denmark.
And while the stadium is being renovated, in the hope of seeing clear feminist, antifascist, and workers' solidarity messages on its new walls, we have printed the message ''Football to the people, football to women” to football scarves, to send it out even broader and louder.
For all football fans, sports workers, women antifascists, and feminists on the grandstand – we have your new favorite fan prop!
We will present it at the screening of the film "Offside" by the Iranian director Jafar Panahi. You will be able to get a scarf for a donation. The number of scarves is limited!
Offside (Afsaid, dir. Jafar Panahi, 2006)
In the fall of 2019, FIFA ordered sports bodies in Iran to grant women access to stadiums. FIFA was forced to comply with that directive because of public pressure following the death of Sahar Khodayari, a supporter known as the ‘blue girl’ (after the colors of Esteghlal, a Tehran football club whose fan she was). Khodayari died in September 2019, as a result of heavy burns, in fear of being imprisoned for trying to enter a stadium disguised as a man. One month after her death, more than three thousand women attended a football match, for the first time after 40 years, to watch Iran against Cambodia.
The Iranian film ‘’Offside”, shot in 2006, documents history of the struggle for women’s entry to football stadiums. It is directed by Jafar Panahi, inspired by his daughter, who tried to sneak into the stadium disguised as a boy. Panahi brought together amateurs and asked them to share their own experiences and creative methods of getting into stadiums, so in ‘’Offside’’ we see different visions of visual identity of a male football fan women pretend to be. The film follows the qualifying match for the FIFA World Cup between Iran and Bahrain. It is largely shot during that match, and it is banned from showing in Iran. The film’s particular value is in its authentic and tragicomic discussion between female supporters and policemen, after they have been arrested in front of the Azadi stadium. To the women’s persistent question to why they were not allowed to enter the stadium, policemen are unable to provide a satisfactory response, and it quickly becomes clear that a lot of them are uncomfortable driving women away from the stadium.
Co-author and film selector: Ivana Perić
Illustrated and designed by: Ena Jurov
Organized by: BLOK
Co-organized by: New Spaces of Culture
Supported by: Local Committee S.S. Kranjčević
The project is supported by the SOLIDARNA Foundation through the Fund for Women within the Program supports for OCDs. Blok's annual program is supported by the ‘Kultura Nova’ foundation.
