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Biranvand suspended from all football activities until further notice.

Team Melli and Persepolis goalkeeper has been suspended from all football activities until further notice.

Alireza Biranvand was called to appear in front of the Football Federation's disciplinary committee today to answer allegations of misconduct and enticing violence after Persepolis last match against Pars Jam. Despite the mandatory requirement, Biranvand seemed to defy the committee and did not turn up.

On hearing the news of the Biranvand's suspension , Persepolis, through Iraj Arab , has immediately issued a statement in which they confirmed that the player will attend the hearing. However, the club did not mention why the player did not attend the hearing as scheduled today as required by regulation. Arab has said that there was a misunderstanding !!

Biranvand has a prior record of such mischief which has put his in  disciplinary problem. It is alleged that Biranvand attacked or was involved in an altercation with one of the security personnel in the stadium.

Welmots signs a 3 years contract in Brussels.

The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Brussels has announced that Marc Welmots has signed a contract with Iran football federation FFIRI.

According to ISNA, Welmots officially signed a three-year contract to lead Team Melli after the meeting with the head of the federation's Mehdi Taj in Brussels today. Welmots who previously traveled to Tehran to visit the federation's facilities, will arrive in Tehran in the coming days to start the preparing Team Melli for the two friendly international matches against Syria and South Korea.

Sheikh Ali, adviser to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Belgium, in an interview with the ISNA correspondent, confirmed the signing of the contract  "The talks were held at the embassy residence in Brussels, which resulted in the signing of the contract, but the embassy had no role whatsoever and has not participated in the negotiations. Sheikh Ali, also rejected any claims that the embassy has assured the Belgium coach of receiving his salary through the Iranian embassy account in Belgium or any other sort of payment to Welmots. He, said: "We have not had any talks on this matter which was purely between the FFIRI and the coach. This issue has nothing to do with the embassy. Consensual negotiations were conducted, and the embassy also did not give Mr. Welmots any guarantee of his salary. We, at the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, provided the logistical for the FFIRI and hosting the venue of negotiation.”

“Any issue regarding the details of the contract must be referred to Mr. Mehdi Taj.”

Earlier, Belgian media reported that the talks between Taj and Welmots have stalled and suspended because of a disagreement over the residing of the Belgian coach in Tehran. Those media news spoke of the possibility of abandoning of the contract.

According to ISNA, Mehdi Taj has left Brussels  heading to Tehran at 15:00 hours.

FFIRI negotiation with Welmots hits a brick wall.

A Belgian website claims that there was a disagreement between Marc Welmots and the Iranian Football Federation FFIRI, and the negotiations have hit a brick wall without reaching an accord.

The Belgian coach has traveled to Iran last week and closely inspected the training facilities of the Iranian national teams. The Iranian Football Federation offered him a contract lasting until 2022, after the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, but Welmots returned back home to Belgium without signing the contract.

Notwithstanding the preconditions provided by the Iranian Football Federation and the proposed € 1.3 million pay check, there is still a big challenge to finalize Welmots’ contract as the head coach of the Iranian national team, a challenge that may indeed prevent Welmots’ appointment.  The FFIRI has a clause in the contract that requires him to reside in Iran and be available almost permanently in the country in order to closely observe the league competition, a subject that has been challenged by the Belgian coach.

It is claimed that that the Belgian coach thought that he would travel to Iran only for Team Melli matches  and that he would remain in Tehran during that period, but now faced with the demand of the Football Federation, this has led to disagreement between the two sides. Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Association, is currently in Belgium for concluding the contract.

If the news is true, Welmots is one of many European coaches that believe in remote control coaching, or “suitcase coaches” as commonly called. They stay at home , enjoy their time while being paid handsomely, and travel a few days before a match hoping for miracles!

Indeed a bizarre concept created long time back by one Javier Clements, a Spanish coach who was offered the Job of Team Melli coach but he insisted that he can deliver much better from home in Spain!

Mehrdad Mohammadi signs for Portuguese club CD Aves

Mehrdad Mohammadi, the 25 years old Sepahan midfielder has reached an agreement with the Portuguese side Clube Desportivo Aves to play for 3 seasons starting from 2019/20 season.

Mohammadi, whose twin brother Milad plays for Russian side Akhmat Grozny, has been enjoying an exceptional season with Sepahan , playing 29 matches and scoring 6 goals. The team under Amir Ghalenoei challenged Persepolis for the title until all the way to the end of the Persian Gulf League, eventually ending as Runner up.

CD Aves , is a small club in Portugal established in 1930. They won promotion to the top division of the Portuguese league in 2017/18 season when they finished runners up in the Iranian forward Segunda Liga. They achieved the same in season 2005/06. The pinnacle of CD Aves achievements is winning the Cup (Taça de Portugal) last season 2017/18.  The coach of CD Aves is the veteran Portuguese coach Augusto Inácio who has coached Foolad Khuzestan in 2007/08 and before joining CD Aves he was in Egypt as head coach of Zamalek.

CD Aves is currently uncomfortably laying in the 14th position in the Primeira liga with 36 points and 2 matches to go. The club is still not safe from relegation as the team in 16th place, Chaves has one match in hand with 32 points.

Vila das Aves is an industrial town and civil parish (freguesia) in northern Portugal with a population of less than 10,000 people. It is about 350 km north of capital Lisbon and 70 km from the Spanish boarder.

Taj "Wilmots appointment is definite, only minor details to be agreed"

Mehdi Taj, insisted that his federation was seeking the best choice to coach Team Melli. In an short statement on the occasion of the visit by Marc Welmots, to Tehran he said: "We want to maintain our top ranking in Asia. On the other hand, we were looking for a coach who could build a youthful national team. We were looking for a young coach in  50 to 55 years age bracket, as such , we ultimately selected Marc Welmots among several options. Welmots took Belgium from a Fifa Ranking of 51 all the way up to second place in the world and left a golden generation of players.”

The head of the Football Federation emphasized: "We have negotiated with Welmots. His appointment is definite. However, there are some minor details that we have to agree upon and we hopefully can resolve it by Monday. Taj, said that Welmots did not expect Iran to be like what he experienced in person. He said several times that although I am not Iranian, I am ecstaticalready. He saw the National Teams Training Center and said that in Belgium we have only a few centers with the same high standards”

The head of the Football Federation added: "I think he did not feel there was any inadequacy in our facilities and it was all acceptable to him. That's what made keen to join and come to our country. Welmots contract will be up to the end of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar,”

Taj added “During the contract of  Queiroz, almost all his assistants were foreigners. Now Wilmtos will bring with him two assistants only while the rest of coaching staff will be selected from the cadre of Iranians. We are actively negotiating and have reached some conclusions for the job of assistant coaches”. Taj did not name the Iranian coaches they have agreed with.

“Most importantly, Wilmots is pivotal,” he said. “When Queiroz was in charge of the national team, some of his duties were not conducted properly due to gaps in the contract. Everything is now clearly described in Wilmots contract and even his media statements are regulated! Friendly games are administrative duty conducted by us, and if there is some suggestion for friendly matches by the coach, then it will be considered, negotiated and contract signed with the appropriate federation. Youth teams are well under the control of Wilmots. It is in one of the clauses of the contract.”

Technical Committee of FFIRI were kept in the dark on Welmots.

Bijan Zolfagharnasb said in a statement to Mehr News Agency sports correspondent, commented on the selection of Marc Welmots as the new head coach of Team Melli by saying "I heard the news from the media. The federation officials decided to keep the negotiation completely secret."

The former coach of the Iranian National Team continued: "I will take Mark Welmots selection and appointment as a good omen (..), he can achieve brilliant results with Team Melli if he is properly managed by the federation. Choosing a good coach is only half the challenge. Fifty percent of this is related to how the federation utilizes the coach."  Zolfagharnasb emphasized the federation's cooperation with his committee " the technical committee  of the federation should continuously supervise and monitor the work of the coaching team. This certainly did not happen during Carlos Queiroz tenure. I did not consider Queiroz to be at fault in this matter. It was the contract signed with the federation that lacked clauses of supervision and oversight by a strong technical committee, hence he did what he liked at will"

Zolfagharnasb also supported the speculations that Javad Nekounam will be part of Welmots team.

Basically, Zolfagharnasb has proved that the Technical Committee of the FFIRI, which he is a prominent member of, is toothless and nothing but a rubber stamp for the President of the federation. One of the responsibilities of the Technical committee is the appraisal and approval of Team Melli and other National Teams age group coaches. Obviously this has not happened and the committee was kept in the dark as Zolfagharnasb himself admitted that he read the news from the media.

The fact that Zolfagharnasb approves Javad Nekounam's appointment, which was an attempted failed move during Queiroz time, says a lot about the so called Technical Committee professionalism and work ethics. In principle, the federation should have a systematic and impartial mechanism of selection. Several candidates from a list of ex-Team Melli players or current coaches, should be considered not jut one person. The Selection process should  pick a competent coach who has the right qualifications, the character, experience and the right motive to be an assistant to a foreign coach. Not only Nekounam does not satisfy all the requirements, it is unfair discrimination to many other potentially good coaches who will never get the chance to serve their country under such a dark and retarded system. The effect of hiring the wrong assistant Iranian coach is significant. especially taking into consideration that he might have a negative effect on his compatriot players.

Marc Wilmots to arrive in Tehran on Wednesday

TEHRAN – An unnamed source in the Iranian football federation FFIRI has mentioned that ex-Belgium coach Marc Wilmots will arrive in Tehran on Wednesday to finalize his deal.

FFIRI will reportedly pay the 50-year-old coach and his two Belgian assistants $1,500,000 per year.

The Iranian federation also wants former Team Melli captain Javad Nekounam to be a member of the coaching staff.

Parliament Member Mohammad Reza Tabesh has also said Wilmots will most likely pen a contract with the Iranian federation. His source of information is unverified.

The Belgian led his homeland to the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016, but was sacked after that tournament in France.

Wilmots, who is also on the Scotland's list of candidates, is set to replace Carlos Querioz in Team Melli.

He has been without a team after leaving the Ivory Coast coaching position in November 2017.

Wilmots will start his work as Iran coach in two friendly matches against Syria and South Korea, scheduled for June 6 and 11.

Azmoun lifts the Russian title with Zenit St. Petersburg

Moscow: Sardar Azmoun's Zenit St Petersburg claimed their fifth Russian title on Saturday with a 1-1 draw at Akhmat Grozny after closest challengers Lokomotiv Moscow lost 2-0 at Arsenal Tula.

In this decider match Sardar Azmoun had to face his compatriot and Team Melli colleague Milad Mohammadi.

With three games to go Zenit are assured of the title with a nine-point lead and a better head-to-head record against second-placed Lokomotiv.

This was Zenit's first title in four years and a great debut season for Team Melli international Azmoun, who has scored 12 goals in the campaign.

Akhmat dominated Zenit but a combination of poor finishing and good goalkeeping by Andrei Lunev left the 13,000 home crowd frustrated. In the 33rd minute Argentinian forward Sebastian Driussi scored for Zenit but his goal was disallowed for offside.

Brazilian midfielder Ismael put Akhmat into the lead 10 minutes after the break with an unopposed shot from 22 yards out. Zenit's Driussi levelled the score with a 10-yard effort through traffic with three minutes remaining.

Source: AFP

The AFC broadcast award special for Saudi Arabia !

If there was the slightest doubt that the Asian Football Federation is a highly politicized body with members supporting the wealthy such as Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf countries in general, all those doubts have been eliminated with the recent move by AFC in the award of broadcasting right. 

The TV broadcast right of the Asian Competitions for Middle East and North Africa has been awarded to Bein Sports for the last few years. The Qatari owned broadcasters had a virtual monopoly on all the competitions including the FIFA World Cup, AFC Asian Cup and the AFC Champions League.

After the Saudi-Led boycott of Qatar and the break of diplomatic and economical relationship between the two countries leading to severe animosity, the Saudi’s were not pleased to have a Qatari organization control the broadcasting of football matches and major sporting events in their country. By hook and crook and in defiance to all International laws and regulations, they established their own station, albeit a pirate station and stole the FIFA and AFC matches that were exclusively awarded to Bein Sports without any consent or rights award.

Despite the outcries , condemnations, threats of legal actions and loads of other statement against piracy and intellectual property by the Americans and Europeans, the Saudi continued defying the international copyright laws with no fear of reprisal. The pirate stations that is broadcast on Arabsat which is based in Riyadh , continues its piracy unabated till the writing of this article. The AFC has condemned this piracy but practically has done nothing to stop it because it is Saudi based. There were always suspicions that the Saudi would not have carried out such piracy without support or consent within the governing body of Asian football, AFC and perhaps FIFA too.

Yesterday, the AFC issued an Invitation to Tender (ITT) for its package of football media rights for the 2021-2024 cycle in Saudi Arabia only!! Currently the rights are not country specific but regional. The Saudi case is an exception to the rules.

There are a lot of legality involved in such a move but the main question that begs itself is on what basis the AFC awards a broadcasting right for one country only? what if the Saudi government is displeased with the winning tender and decides it wants to change it to broadcaster of a much more friendly obedient state government?

There has been many critics of the AFC preferential treatment afforded to Saudi Arabia. The Iranians are one big victims of the flagrant Saudi bias. All matches involving Iranian and Saudi teams have to be played on neutral ground simply because of the Saudi refusal to travel to Iran. AFC simply obeys the demands of Saudi Arabia which is supposed to have 1 vote only. With moves such as that, every football fan is entitles to question the infiltration of politics in Asian football while AFC always claims that politics should not interfere in football.

Questions have been asked about AFC decision making process and whether the executive committee has any authority or it is acting as a rubber stamp for the Saudi-backed President of the AFC Salman bin Ebrahim ? The Bahrain President has been re-elected unopposed for another term with all candidates withdrawing before the election.

Ghasempour criticizes FFIRI in the aftermath of Kranjcar's departure.

The former head coach of the Omid team believes that the appointment of Zlatko Krancjar's was irrational and not based on proper selection mechanism. The federation has chosen him without due diligence.

Ebrahim Ghasempour, in an interview with Isna, criticized the performance of the federation in concluding the contract of Zlatko Krancjar as head coach of Omid team after just over a year in charge saying:”I personally did not agree with Krancjar's choice, as he coached Sepahan and despite the immense support , the facilities and resources provided to him, his delivery was less than optimal. It did not work well in Sepahan for either sides”.

“On the other hand, he did not have a much experience coaching young or lower age group players in any team. In general, this choice was not rational and not based on collective thinking. This selection was made in consistence with the past selections of the federation, which found itself under time pressure and lack of available choices, hence it was concluded without proper and sufficient due diligence.”

Referring to the debilitated performance of the Football Federation, the Iranian football expert continued: “The Football Federation not only does not pay attention to these issues, but also to other matters. If we look back at the past, the choices for coaching posts in age group national teams were based on recommendations by influential people without much study and performance analysis. In the past few years, none of these choices have been principled. The same was true for Krancjar. Additionally, after the departure of Queiroz, the Team Melli will suffer the same fate and will face this problem.”

Commenting on the fact that the federation was suffering from lack of financial resources and currency exchange rates, although they do not explicitly admit to that issue, and it seems that lack of currency resources has delayed the selection of the national team head coach, Ghasimpour said: "We all know we do not have money. We are not very honest on many issues in this country. The Ministry of Sports and the Football Federation and other organizations do not have the hard currency. They always want to do something beyond their means to hush the people and think they are at control , which will make the situation even worse. By raising the people’s expectation and then failing to deliver, it is much worse than admitting the short-comes”.

“They just lie, lies after lies and make thing appear beautiful and dandy.”

He spoke about speculations of Yahya Golmohammadi and/or Javad Nekounam coaching the Omid National Team in place of Kranjcar. “The two were great players of the national team. Technically and ethically respectable. Nekounam was one of my player in the past during my time at Pas club. However, they have very little coaching experience in the League.”

“Playing at the highest level, does not mean that you will automatically qualify to be a successful coach.  If that was the case that every successful player would turn out to be a great coach, then Maradona would have been the greatest coach. There is a great divide between a good coach and a good player.”

Ghasempour stressed: "There is , however, a good aspect to appointment of such young coaches who were former Team Melli players for age group and junior categories as understudy to an experience coach especially if such players were featured and morally approved, however they must be sure they are supported properly. The sad fact, that I'm sure of, is that this support and back up normally does not materialize and these young coaches are victimized for poor results. The support fades very rapidly when the results are not satisfactory.”

The former head coach of the Omid team who as a player played in the 1978 FIFA World Cup noted “In the past, they (FFIRI) appointed coaches who were not even players. They were chosen intermediaries because the Minister or the City Council member or someone influential was backing this person.”