Document Type : Original Article
Authors
Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Ker.c, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran
Abstract
The main purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of Iranian women attending football stadiums, with an emphasis on the different stages of attendance, the barriers they experienced, and their perceptions of social interactions within the stadium environment. This study was conducted using a qualitative approach within the interpretive paradigm and employed a descriptive phenomenological strategy. The participants consisted of 21 Iranian women with experience of attending football stadiums, which were selected through criterion-based purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed seven-step method (1978). Lincoln and Guba’s criteria (1985) were also used to ensure the credibility and trustworthiness of the data. The findings showed that women’s experience of attending stadiums is neither simple nor merely recreational; rather, it is a multi-stage process that begins with an emotional threshold including excitement, curiosity, and anxiety, intensifies through engagement with the stadium’s multisensory and embodied atmosphere, and culminates in moments of peak emotional synchrony and collective enjoyment during the match. Women also encountered multiple layers of barriers throughout the process, including difficulties in accessing tickets, executive and logistical problems, institutional controls, security restrictions, and various forms of exclusion and discrimination. At the level of social interactions, their experience was also dual in nature, as they simultaneously encountered solidarity and acceptance, as well as judgmental gazes, social pressure, and self-surveillance. These findings indicate that women’s attendance at football stadiums in Iran is a tense, multidimensional, and social experience that reveals the intertwinement of excitement, belonging, restriction, and surveillance.
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