Friday 6 March 2015 12:35, UK
Sepp Blatter has hit out at the members of FIFA for failing to elect any women onto the governing body's executive committee.
The committee includes three women, one with voting rights, but they are elected directly by the FIFA Congress following a change to the statutes in 2011.
The FIFA president has called for change in the continental confederations, describing football as a “macho sport”.
He said: "This was hard work because the members of FIFA's executive committee are elected by the national associations in their (continental) Congresses and... there was never, never a proposal for a woman to be finally in FIFA.
"We had to take the decision, and I did it in 2011 at the end of the Congress, I said we must have at least one woman on the executive committee.
"In all the confederations, there is no woman... this macho sport, and that's a pity, we should change in the future."
Blatter also called for Iran to end its ban on women watching football matches, describing the situation as "intolerable”.
"When I travelled to Iran in November 2013, I was not only confronted with huge popular enthusiasm from football but also a law forbidding women from attending football matches," he wrote in FIFA's weekly magazine.
"I raised the topic at my meeting with the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani, and came away with the impression that this intolerable situation could change over the medium term.
"However, nothing has happened. A collective "stadium ban" still applies to women in Iran, despite the existence of a thriving women's football organisation.
"This cannot continue. Hence, my appeal to the Iranian authorities; open the nation's football stadiums to women."
During the Asian Cup in Australia in January, Iran's support included thousands of women who were free to attend.
