Soon after Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad was elected president of Iran last June some western critics questioned his sanity and intelligence. Others dismissed him as a puppet of fundamentalist clergy.

But Iran is a land of surprises. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad came to power as a fundamentalist committed to restore the ideals of the 1979 islamic revolution, but his order this week for sports authorities to lift the ban on women attending top football matches has upturned Iranian politics bringing him into conflict with fundamentalist allies.