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The Al-Arabiya website recently reported that eight members of the Iranian international women’s soccer team are actually males. By blowing up the photo attached to this article and taking a look at it, you wouldn’t be surprised. According to an Iranian soccer official named Mojtabi Sharifi, the players have been competing with the women’s side before undergoing their planned sex-change operations. Sharifi went on to say the some of the males have been playing their entire careers on women’s teams.

It’s unclear exactly how many players on the female national team were actually born as males and later underwent sex-change operations. But the question that begs to be asked here is why are so many Iranian males lining up for the operation and why do so many of them seem to be soccer players? It’s harder for soccer officials to detect cheaters on Iranian squads since players are allowed to wear kits that cover their legs and arms and they’re also allowed to wear hijab head scarves.

Sharifi said the country’s governing body is to blame for the cock up, quite literally. Soccer’s quite popular over in Iran, but ironically, women aren’t allowed even allowed to attend games unless they’re actually playing in it. Also, female players aren’t allowed to travel outside of the country to play unless they receive permission from their husbands. This isn’t the first time males have been caught playing on women’s teams in Iran and it probably won’t be the last as long as players are allowed to wear these gender-hiding uniforms.

Reports out of the country last year said four players on the women’s international team were males and gender-testing was supposed to become mandatory. Obviously that hasn’t happened since the number of males on the squad has doubled this year. However, it’s been reported that seven males were discovered in women’s leagues over the past year and their playing contracts were terminated. Iran supposedly one of the world leaders when it comes to sex-change operations ever since 1979 when former leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made them legal.

Supposedly, some of the eight players on the current national team are waiting in line to undergo a sex-change operation and the others suffer from sexual-development disorders. Since pre-marital sex and homosexuality are banned in Iran, it seems like males who come out of the closet prefer to change their gender rather than break the current laws of the land. In related news, there should now be eight spots opening up on the Iranian women’s national team.