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Shams calls for total detachment of FFIRI from government influence.

Hossein Shams, the former head coach of Iran's national futsal team defined the upcoming elections of the football federation as crucial and demanded full independence of the federation from political institutions.

"In my opinion, the head of the federation should be strong and independent and not a servant of the minister, pressure groups, or the parliamentarians. Don't let non-football personnel run the federation and do not allow decisions to be made by outsiders whose interests and objectives are not necessarily in tandem with the development and progress of football and futsal. Try to improve football and futsal yourself. He should not allow the interference of the minister, he should not let the parliamentarians and the Article 90 Commission make decisions for football, and he and his team alone should do all the work. "

"This football that we are witnessing now is the end result of continuous interference from outsiders that use all sorts of tactics to influence outcomes and systematically interfere in major decisions. The head of the football federation must be strong enough to withstand such pressure and be independent of the government and parliament. After all, this is the normal practice. This is the most important feature that a federation president should possess."

Regarding the possible competition between Azizullah Mohammadi, Mehdi Taj, and Mirshad Majdi for the presidency of the Football Federation, Shams said: "I have no idea if they have been vetted and approved yet. It has not yet been confirmed and none of these 3 have presented a plan that one could decide which one to choose. I believe that someone should be elected whose plans are practical and doable. Regrettably, as soon as they win the office, they have achieved their objective which is primarily to win recognition and hold the office of president. "

"History tells us that most of them do not fulfill any of their promises".

The football federation in Iran has historically suffered interference and pressure from the government with impunity. The fact that the federation is virtually bankrupt and depends a lot on government handouts, pressures the leadership of the FFIRI to abide by the government but that is all done under the table fearing FIFA Sanction. Despite the constant denials of the Ministry of Sports, it is no secret that the head of FFIRI has to visit the ministry whenever a major decision needs to be taken. The latest episode with Dragan Skocic is one typical example. The government owns two of the biggest and most popular clubs in Iran Esteghlal and Persepolis and refusing to let go despite decades of promises to do so.

The plight of Omid Team, a reoccurring saga.

A spell that is not going to break approaching the 44th year.

Omid's national football team is approaching the Olympics without the support of officials and clubs, and the spell of its failures will probably reach 48 years. Iran's U23 (Omid national football team) started its camp to prepare for the Islamic Solidarity Games in Turkey, and without playing its second preparatory game, the training camp was canceled and everyone was sent home. After months of planning, support, and budgeting, the result of which is that Iran is unable to send the Olympic hopeful team to the Islamic Solidarity games!

This disappointment occurred while many in the corridors of the FFIRI and the media were hopeful that Mehdi Mahdavikia will be able to qualify the Omid Team for the Olympic games in Paris after a 44 years absence. The first sign of trouble for Omid, however, was clear when they astonishingly failed to qualify from the group stage in the AFC U23 championship, and now they are unable to form a team that can compete in a much lesser competition which was supposed to be an important stage preparing or the Olympics.

Under such circumstances, what rights does Iran's U23 team has to claim a place amongst the elite in the Olympics or be among the top three teams in Asia? Certainly not with the situation that Iranian football, sports authorities and clubs have created for the team. Therefore, it is not far from expected that Iranian football will be absent from the Olympics in 2024. While Asian countries such as Saudi Arabia, which recently won the championship of AFC U23 Cup, are preparing to experience another international event, Iranian football has failed to form a preparatory camp and send it to a tournament.

When Asian football powers such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq and emerging powers in this age group including Uzbekistan, Qatar, UAE, etc. do their best planning to participate in an event like the Olympics and gain experience in these competitions, Iran's Omid national team has started its camp while the players trickled into the U23 national team in the form of drop by drop, and finally, due to the absence of seven key players of this selection, the project of competing in the Islamic solidarity games was shelved by Mahdavikia!

While the Premier League clubs have refused to release their players to the Omid team, the aforementioned games end on August 25, i.e. 5 days after the start of the Premier League.  Gaining experience by playing three good games against teams like Azerbaijan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia is the exact requirement for the Omid Team that it lacked in these months. Since Mahdavikia took office as Omid's head coach, this team has only managed one friendly game with Iraq as its preparation match, while other meetings have been against League teams! If the Iranian national team had the same facilities as countries with power and capital, everyone would definitely agree that it is unfair if such a team does not qualify for the Olympics and international events, and instead, a team that does not have any plans, facilities, and budgets, does so in the best event of this age group.

The actions of the Football Federation and the National Olympic Committee, in this case, are no different from the previous cases of Iran's Omid team failures, which are aplenty. Iran's Omid is following the path it followed in the past 44 years. Creating a bunch of excuses and justification, blaming the earth and the sky, and anything in between, until the next Olympics and the next failure.

The reality is the same and hardly changes. Iran's football lack of strong leadership is the result of decades of incompetent and corrupt managers controlling the affairs. It is whom you know and which gang you belong to that gives these people the opportunity to manage clubs and the federation rather than ability, competency, knowledge or heaven forbids, intelligence. Most of the football federation and club personnel that controls football, have no right to be anywhere near these institutions. The few good ones that remain and work faithfully and purely for the interest of the nation, do not survive the plots and the corrupt lobbies.

ill discipline of Iranian players & coaches! The saga continues.

Iranian club football and to a certain extent, Team Melli, has been facing indiscipline, anarchy, and physical altercations at various levels in recent years. The FFIRI and other responsible organizations have not solved this moral and cultural problem. While the FFIRI Ethics & Disciplinary committee in particular seems to be ill-equipped for the job and proven to be a feeble body that suffers a lack of consistency and at times toothless to what is happening around.

This chaotic lawlessness has been out of control that even the pre-season camps have suffered from it.

Saket Elhami, a controversial figure and one who has faced disciplinary action umpteen times, in the last few years and was frequently banned by ethics and disciplinary committees of FFIRI, once again caused controversy and made headlines. The new head coach of Havadar coaching his team in the Turkish camp had a physical fight with Hamid Motahari, his counterpart in Nasaji Mazandaran, to the amazement of the onlookers, tourists, and athletes present at the Green Park camp in Turkey.

The culture of violence and aggression among the Iranian coaches has replaced the culture of self-control, respect, and chivalry in Iran's football. Instead of calming the players, some coaches entice them and display a bad example of behavior towards opponent coaches, referees, and even their own fans!  Needless to mention that such poor behavior creeps into Team Melli particularly if the team coach is lenient.

This is all occurring while there are no attempts by the organizations concerned to promote any cultural awareness in the Iranian League clubs. In the season when the clubs will witness the return of the fans into the stadiums, the teams create convulsions and have justified that ill behavior as seeking success by any means possible.

The physical altercation and fist fights were not limited to the Turkish training camps of Havadar and Nassiji clubs, either. Mes Kerman was forced to abandon its friendly match halfway through the game due to the violence and fights between its players and those of Gol Gohar Sirjan. The referee, Amir Arab Baraghi has to use his yellow and red cards many times while in charge of another match between Persepolis and Mes Kerman. And all these are friendly matches ...!

It is not clear whether this toxic and volatile atmosphere created in the pre-season by the hands of football players and coaches will turn into a fear of football by fans. Even worst, if the fights on the pitch will creep into the stands with disastrous results.  Unless the intervention of ethics institutions to promote sportsmanship culture will reduce the severity of this amount of bad behavior.

The body which is really responsible, The FFIRI's Ethics and the Disciplinary Committee needs to be sacked and replaced by competent and fast-acting personnel who do not fear Esteghlal and Perspolis influences and apply heavy sentences on the offenders.

CAS Ruling on Wilmotts case starts a war of words and finger pointing!

After the Supreme Sports Court CAS ruled against Iran's Football Federation and ordered that the former head coach of Team Melli , Marc Wilmots, be awarded euros 3,300,000 in compensation, Mehdi Taj, the former head of the FFIRI, defended his performance in the case and accused others of shortcomings that lead to this heavy fine.

Mehdi Taj's reasonings, however, were far from convincing and lacked factual data which prompted rections from the media, legal experts, and members of the parliament. Although Taj failed to clarify the ambiguities in his own defense while at the helm of the federation that recruited the failure Wilmots, it did, however, uncover some insight into how this federation was poorly managed.

Taj's main defense against the breach of contract is the US sanctions on Iran. The non-payment of Wilmott's wages was due to his federation's inability to honor the contract. However,  faced by many questions on the authenticity of his claim, he could only offer one answer to how was it that the previous coach, Carlos Queiroz was getting his wages regularly despite the same US sanction prevailing, by suggestiong that the US Sanctions got worst in the case of Wilmott's  !!

This issue drew criticism from MP Ehsan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, who claimed that the compensation for the Wilmots case should be paid by the members of the former Board of Directors of FFIRI including Taj as they were accountable and culpable for such public funds wastage and misappropration.

Meanwhile, Hamid Sajjadi, the Minister of Sports and Youth last night, called the case of the former head coach of Team Melli as "Wilmots Tsunami" and said: "What we saw in the report is like the tip of the iceberg that is sticking out of the water." In our meetings, I named it "Wilmots Tsunami ".

Despite the accountability of Mehdi taj and his responsibility for the failure of Wilmot both on and off the field, Taj managed to sneak in and register his name as a candidate for the new federation board and the Presidency of FFIRI!

The lack of accountability and due process has allowed many corrupt managers to get away with murder in Iran. The reality is that the country is infested with corrupt, inept, and/or incompetent managers who run public organizations to the ground with immunity. FFIRI seems to attractct all the shady elemnts.

Asia’s pathway to the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup™ 2027 confirmed

 
the-afc.com Kuala Lumpur: 

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Executive Committee has approved the 
qualification format for Asia’s Road to the FIFA World Cup 2026 as well as the AFC Asian Cup™ 2027 in preparation for the eight direct spots and a single Intercontinental Playoff slot allocated to the AFC by FIFA following the expansion of the FIFA World Cup 2026 to 48 teams.
The new qualification format has been established after several consultations and dialogue sessions with the AFC Member Associations (MAs), briefings with the AFC Competitions Committee, as well as the Confederation’s key stakeholders.
 
 
It was decided that the FIFA World Cup 2026 qualification tournament will comprise four rounds:
·       Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 1: 22 teams, ranked 26 to 47, will be drawn to face off in a home and away format, where the 11 winners will progress to the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2.
 
·       Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2: 36 teams – teams ranked from 1 to 25 as well as the 11 winners from the first round – will be divided into nine groups of four teams each, who will each compete in a round robin, home and away format, where the top two teams from each group – 18 in total – will advance to the AFC Asian Qualifiers.
 
·       AFC Asian Qualifiers: Subsequently, the 18 teams, who also qualify automatically for the AFC Asian Cup™ 2027, will be divided into three groups of six teams each, competing in a round robin, home and away format, with the top two teams from each group – six in total – qualifying directly to the FIFA World Cup 2026.
 
·       Asian Playoff: The final round will consist of the third and fourth-placed teams from all groups of the AFC Asian Qualifiers – six teams in total. The six teams will be drawn into two groups of three teams each, competing in a single round-robin format.
 
·       The two first-placed teams from the Asian Playoff groups will advance to the FIFA World Cup 2026. The second-placed teams from both groups will compete in a playoff match to determine the side that will represent the AFC in the Intercontinental Playoff.
 
The AFC Asian Cup™ 2027 Qualifiers will continue from the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 1 and Round 2, in parallel with the FIFA World Cup 2026 qualification competition:
 
·       AFC Asian Cup™ Qualifiers Playoff: The 10 losing teams from the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 1 will be drawn to compete in a home and away format, where the five winners will advance to the AFC Asian Cup™ Qualifiers Final Round.
 
·       AFC Asian Cup™ Qualifiers Final Round: 24 teams in total – 1 best ranked losing team from the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 1, 18 third and fourth-placed teams from each group of the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2, and the five winners from the AFC Asian Cup™ Qualifiers Playoff – will be divided into six groups of four teams each, where only the first placed team of each group will qualify to the AFC Asian Cup™ 2027.
The format above is based on the entry of all 47 Member Associations and is subject to change depending on the final number of entries.
 
Additionally, the AFC Executive Committee also approved the proposal of the competitions’ (national teams, futsal and beach soccer) calendar for 2023/2024 which is tabled below and at the same time, provided the Administration with the mandate to alter the Match Days (MD) where necessary.
 

Omid Team withdraws from the Islamic Solidarity Games!

The team that Mehdi Mahdavikia is managing in hope of qualifying for the Paris Olympic Games 2024, has announced its withdrawal from the Islamic Solidarity Games that are supposed to be held in Turkey.

These games, were part of a long-term project to qualify the young Iranian team for the Olympic Games in Paris.

After some disappointing showings including the elimination from the AFC U23 Cup in the group rounds, the latest results have indicated that this team is far from challenging for any kind of title and has a long way to go to be taken seriously. According to Mahdavikia himself, " If these are the conditions that we have to work under, we will be lucky to make Mehrabad airport let alone Paris!" The difficulties that Mhadavikia, who has lost his foreign assistants and advisors, is referring to include but are not limited to the reluctance of the League clubs to release their players, many of whom are fixed, senior team players.

Omid Team foreign coaches left Iran after non-payment of their wages by the FFIRI or the Iranian Olympic Committee IOC, something which is quite normal in Iran. The breach of contracts between teams and coaches is affecting all levels of football in the country.

In the latest friendly match, the Omid team under Mahadavikia lost to Persepolis 4-2 with the reds playing some of the players that Mahdavikia picked for the U23 team. Kia claimed that he had only 14 to 16 players available to him and that number is quite insufficient for a team that is preparing for a major championship.

It has been quite a rough road for Mehdi Mahdavikia who reluctantly agreed to coach the Omid Team, while many others turned down this offer. The U23 or Omid Team has been a serious failing experience for the aspiring and even experienced Iranian coaches. All of them failed to achieve anything of worth for the team Melli of the future. Many of these coaches' reputations were damaged beyond repair after experiencing failures with Omid, Mahdavikia is in danger of being added to that list too.

The FFIRI has not formally announced the withdrawal from the Solidarity games yet.

FIFA ranking is deceiving , Is Iran really the number one football nation in Asia?

Although Team Melli has been topping the FIFA Ranking in Asia for many months and years, the reality of the football results, performances of other Iranian teams, global reputation, management, and administration chaos tells a completely different story. A close analysis of the above shows that Iranian football is lagging behind major Asian footballing nations in recent years. According to the FIFA ranking system for the Senior National Football teams, Iran's team has often been at the top rank of Asian teams in the FIFA rankings in recent years. This ranking cannot be questioned because it has its own criteria and points are awarded for winning in each match, while each match has a factor based on importance and the position/rank of the opponents. So, it is quite scientific and the process v=cannot be faulted in any way. However, by examining various fields and indicators, including the superiority of Iranian football in the competition with important teams in the world at the club and junior levels football and the results obtained In the AFC Asian Cup, World Cup rounds, and Olympics, we find out that Iranian football is by far not the top nation in Asia as we have always been led to believe. Now the question is why Iranian football has not been able to get results in important Asian competitions for many years. Why has a team that claims to be a contender in Asian football not achieved any important honor in the last 30 years in the club division and in the last 40 years at the national level?  

1/ Performance in the World Cup

Performance of Asian teams in the World Cup (teams that advanced to the second round are highlighted in blue)  
Teams Korea Rep Japan Saudi Arabia Iran Australia Korea DPR
Played 34 21 16 15 16 7
Won 6 5 3 2 2 1
Drawn 9 5 2 4 4 1
Lost 19 11 11 9 10 5

2/ Performance in the Olympics

46 years have passed since Iran's last participation in the Olympics, and by the time the Paris Olympics begin, this longing will reach 48 years. For every Olympic qualifier, failures and lackluster results lead to elimination from the early stages of qualifiers. Iran's Omid national team fails to advance to the Olympics tournament after tournament. The following is the list of Asian Teams that qualified for the Olympics since 1980.
1980 IRAQ SYRIA  KUWAIT
1984 IRAQ SAUDI ARABIA QATAR
1988 IRAQ KOREA REP CHINA
1992 QATAR KOREA REP KUWAIT
1996 JAPAN KOREA REP SAUDI ARABIA
2000 JAPAN KOREA REP KUWAIT
2004 JAPAN KOREA REP IRAQ
2008 JAPAN KOREA REP AUSTRALIA
2012 JAPAN KOREA REP UAE
2016 JAPAN KOREA REP IRAQ
2020 JAPAN KOREA REP AUSTRALIA SAUDI ARABIA
 

3/ The AFC Asian Cup

The longing for lifting the AFC Asian Cup trophy by Team Melli, which Iran won three times in a row before the revolution, is now 47 years old, and Iran has not won the title since the revolution. by the next edition of the Asian Cup, this longing will last half a century. This is despite the fact that since Iran's last championship in the Asian Cup, Japan won 4, Saudi Arabia won 3, and Kuwait, Iraq, Australia, and  Qatar have won the title once in Iran's absence.
YEAR CHAMPION FINALIST THIRD
1980 KUWAIT KOREA REP IRAN
1984 SAUDI ARABIA CHINA KUWAIT
1988 SAUDI ARABIA KOREA REP IRAN
1992 JAPAN SAUDI ARABIA CHINA
1996 SAUDI ARABIA UAE IRAN
2000 JAPAN SAUDI ARABIA KOREA REP
2004 JAPAN CHINA IRAN
2007 IRAQ SAUDI ARABIA KOREA REP
2011 JAPAN AUSTRALIA KOREA REP
2015 AUSTRALIA KOREA REP UAE
2019 QATAR JAPAN IRAN & UAE
  4/ Performance in the AFC Champions League Pas won the Asian Club Cup in the 1992-1993 season. Three decades have passed since then. In this competition, Iranian club teams have never been able to win the championship title in its new format. The Asian Champions League has been held in a new format since 2002. The number of championships of Asian teams since the start of the Champions League: South Korea: 6 championships Japan: 4 championships Saudi Arabia: 4 championships Australia: 1 championship Iran: Zero  

5/ The number of legionnaires in the 5 prestigious leagues of the world

   
JAPAN KOREA DPR AUSTRALIA IRAN SAUDI ARABIA
Bundesliga 9 4 4 1 0
English Premier League: 2 2 1 1 0
La Liga 1 1 2 0 0
Serie A 2 0 0 0 0
14 7 7 2 0
   

Omid Team called for Islamic Solidarity Games 2022

The Football federation announced the name of 26 players invited to join the Omid Team camp in preparation for The Islamic Solidarity Games football competition in Turkey. The team will be led by coach Mehdi Mahdavikia who has arranged two friendly games before departure for the games. Omid team's last outing in the AFC U23 Asian Championship was rather disappointing as the team did not manage to qualify from the group stage and departed home early. In the last decade, Omid team under various coaches failed in every competition that has been played including the Olympic Qualifiers.   The invited players' list
  1. Ali Pilaram (South Pars)
  2. Alireza Khodaei (Persepolis)
  3. Ali Asghar SadeghNasab (Mes Rafsanjan)
  4. Amir Ali Sadeghi (Esteghlal)
  5. Amir Jafari Siglani (Gol Gohar Sirjan)
  6. Amir Mohammad MohkamKar (Sepahan)
  7. Arya Barzegar (Tractor)
  8. Arya Yousefi (Sepahan)
  9. Bilal Arazi (Gol Gohar Sirjan)
  10. Erfan Shahriari Khalaji,
  11. Fardin Rabet
  12. Mehdi Hashemnejad (Tractor)
  13. Mohammad Ghorbani (Nasiji Mazandaran)
  14. Mohammad Hossein Alipour (Mes Shar Babak) 
  15. Mohammad Hossein Eslami (Zob Ahan)
  16. Mohammad Javadkia (Aluminium Arak)
  17. Mohammad Mehdi Ahmadi (Persepolis)
  18. Mohammad Amin Hezbavi (Foolad Khuzestan)
  19. Milad Kerr (Tractor)
  20. Payam Parsa (Sanat Naft Abadan)
  21. Saman Falah (Peykan)
  22. Saman Tooranian (Mes Kerman)
  23. Sina SaeediFar (Esteghlal)
  24. Sina Abdollahei (Naft Masjed Soleiman)
  25. Yasin Salmani (Sepahan)
  26. Younis Akbarpour (Aluminium Arak)

FFIRI to pay Wilmots a further 3 Million Euros

The former head of the Legal Department of the Football Federation said: "The ruling of the Wilmots case has been issued and we have to pay an amount of around 3 million euros to this coach." According to Mehr reporter, Safiullah Faghanpour said " as a result of the former Team Melli coach filing a claim demanding payment of 6 million Euros in back pay and damages, FIFA Disciplinary Committee ruled for the Belgian coach and order FFIRI pay Wilmott an amount of 6 million euros after, however, after FFIRI appealed against the amount, the case was sent to arbitration at CAS, which issued its verdict and the amount was reduced to 3 million Euros. Faghanpour said: "There was a lot of concern here and everyone thought that we would be condemned in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but I consider what we achieved as a great success !!. The only case that we have won over the years in international tribunals is the Wilmots case, which was in CAS and the verdict was broken." Faghanpour mentioned that it (CAS) reduced the amount of Wilmots against Iran, but it could have reached about 12 million euros. Now the Supreme Sports Court has disregarded the claim and made the final payment due to the coach to less than 3 million euros. Faghanpour claimed that this was a great success for the Federation and in a bizarre statement, claimed: "Now we have to pay an amount that is not very significant! "  Faghanpour, who was talking to "Good Morning" TV show, was asked whether this decision on Wilmots' case is final and official? He emphasized: "Yes, the verdict was issued. Probably, it will be announced this week. What I said is certain." Faghanpour then went on to congratulate himself on the victory !!! "I must congratulate the success we achieved in the Supreme Court of Sports! The Belgian Marc Wilmott was appointed as the head coach of Team Melli in 2018 replacing Carlos Queiroz. He was in the job for less than 6 months and received 2 million euros from the Football Federation before losing to Bahrain and Iraq. Based on Faghanpour's words, Wilmots has earned around 1 million euros each month in his short and disastrous time in Iran, yet he has the audacity to congratulate himself and the FFIRI for not paying 12 million euros as he claimed! In contrast, The Croatian Dragan Skocic, whose contract is in local currency draws a salary of nearly US$100,000 a month, i.e. only 10% of what Wilmott's earned. It is a desperate time for Iran's Football management and leadership. It seems the FFIRI as an organization attracts lots of charlatans, incompetent and inept people who do nothing but harm football and the country's reputation, not to mention damage its finances. One person who is responsible for the Wilmotts debacle, Mehdi Taj is putting his name forward as a candidate for the Presidency of the FFIRI in the coming election next month!    

Pashazadeh :"Turmoil in Team Melli camp, is the result of weak leadership"

The story of the sacking of Skocic and then a U-turn by the federation is still reverberating in Iran and across many other countries. It has sent a shock wave among senior footballers and former Team Melli players, who one after another criticized both the federation and some players for their unseemly act against the coach who qualified them for the World Cup 2022 One of those who voiced his disdain at what is happening is the Former Team Melli defender Mehdi Pashazadeh. In an interview with Mehr News, he said  "  These events have done nothing but harm to the reputation of Iranian football and our standing in the international arena is becoming subject of ridicule, especially amongst our World Cup opponents. Those who caused and create these situations can wait and see what is the end results of their behavior in Qatar." The former national football player said: "After the departure of Wilmots, the national team was in a precarious and tricky situation, and at that time, few people were willing to risk their career and reputation to take over the leadership of the national team on the brink of elimination from the World Cup. However, Skocic took that risk, which is precisely why he should be given much credit and respect. The results of the qualifiers with Wilmots were abnormal and it was clear that things were not going well in Team Melli camp. Under normal circumstances, obtaining such results was beyond belief. However, with the same squad under heavy pressure, Skocic was able to lead Team Melli to the World Cup. If his services were not required beyond that, it should have been done immediately but honorably after the qualification, with a new plan in mind, and a stronger coach should have been chosen. Especially since our qualification to the World Cup was confirmed halfway through and there was an ample opportunity to plan ahead and negotiate contracts"   Pashazadeh continued: "Unfortunately, Skocic was not treated correctly. Once they decided in their own mind that he was not competent, they fired him but after 10 days they retained him again, and this act was detrimental to the personality and reputation of this coach or any other coach for that matter.  Personally, if I were Skocic, I would not have come back after these behaviors." The former Bayer 04 Leverkusen , SC Fortuna Köln (Germany), SK Rapid Wien, and SK Sturm Graz (Austria) player concluded " These problems have appeared in our football recently as a result of weak leadership at the head of football in recent years, and this mismanagement has directly reflected on Team Melli and of course other national teams in the junior and lower age groups. Allowing players to bad-mouth coaches and dictate whom they want is the beginning of the demise."