The stadium was designed by Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaian's architecture firm, AFFA, with portions of the larger sports complex planned by the American firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Inaugurated on October 17, 1971, by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, it was constructed by Arme Construction Company for the 1974 Asian Games. But the real ambition went further. The stadium was the centerpiece of a sprawling athletic complex meant to support Tehran's bid for the 1984 Summer Olympics. In August 1975, the Shah, Tehran's mayor, and the Iranian Olympic Committee formally notified the International Olympic Committee of Iran's interest. The stadium could hold 120,000 spectators. The bid seemed serious. Then political unrest consumed the country, and Tehran withdrew. Los Angeles, the only remaining candidate, won by default.

Football replaced Olympic dreams as the stadium's purpose. As the home ground for both Esteghlal and Persepolis, Iran's two most storied clubs, and the national team, Azadi became the beating heart of Iranian football. The record attendance -- over 128,000 spectators -- was set during a 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Australia, a match that transcended sport and became a national event. The atmosphere inside the bowl on those occasions defies description: a concrete crater filled with noise that seems to have physical weight. Even after renovations reduced capacity from 120,000 to the current 78,116, the stadium has been filled beyond its limits. During an Iran-Japan World Cup qualifier in March 2005, overcrowding contributed to the deaths of seven people. Structural engineer James Raymond Whittle, who came from England to manage the original construction, built something capable of containing passions he could not have foreseen.

The stadium's name is its cruelest irony. "Azadi" means freedom, yet since 1982, Iranian women have been banned from attending men's football matches there. The prohibition has drawn repeated international criticism. FIFA President Sepp Blatter demanded in 2015 that Iran end the ban. Iranian football stars have publicly called for its repeal. The issue has also affected Iran's ability to host international tournaments. Despite repeated bids for the AFC Asian Cup, which Iran last hosted in 1976, officials have acknowledged that the ban on women has prevented international sports organizations from awarding major events to the country. Director Jafar Panahi made the ban the subject of his 2006 film Offside, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film follows young women attempting to sneak into Azadi Stadium to watch a match, turning the concrete walls of the stadium into a metaphor for barriers far larger than sport.

The stadium sits in western Tehran near the Ekbatan district, part of the Azadi Sport Complex that includes facilities for multiple Olympic-caliber sports. From altitude, its elliptical bowl is unmistakable, one of the largest single structures in Tehran's urban sprawl. The original scoreboard gave way to a Jumbotron in 2004. The arc of its upper tiers, once standing room for tens of thousands, was fitted with individual seats during the 2002-2003 renovations. Ten thousand parking spaces surround the exterior. Inside, the architecture retains its 1970s monumentalism: raw concrete, sweeping curves, and the sheer scale that was meant to announce Iran's arrival on the world stage. That announcement was interrupted by revolution, redirected by football, and complicated by the politics of who gets to walk through the gates. More than five decades after the Shah cut the ribbon, Azadi Stadium remains the largest and most emotionally charged sporting venue in a nation that treats football as something close to religion.