Skocic’s financial burden is on the shoulders of the Football Federation

The president of the Football Federation has not yet managed to settle the severance pay that is due for the sacked Croat ex-Team Melli coach Dragan Skocic, Mehdi Taj promised Skocic that FFIRI will pay all his dues before he leaves Iran, but there were no settlements nor any payments.

Mehdi Taj decided to terminate Dragan Skocic’s contract after returning to the position of President of the Football Federation so that Carlos Queiroz can be recruited for Team Melli’s bench in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Taj is guilty of creating a catastrophic contract with Marc Wilmots, which caused Iranian football to be fined 3,325,000 euros plus a 5% per year delay fine, the heaviest case in FFIRI history .

When he was faced with demands of the Belgian coach to terminate his contract, Taj could not agree on terms with Wilmots. He even took two million euros in cash to Istanbul to pay off the Belgian who was by far the weakest foreign coach that Team Melli has had for decades but failed to satisfy the Belgian’s lawyers.

 After Taj’s proposals to settle with Wilmott failed, he returned to Tehran empty-handed. Conveniently, Taj resigned his post claiming ill health, thus avoiding the consequences of the FIFA fine and passing the torch to the next leader of FFIRI.

Now Taj is in another project that seems to be completely similar to what he had played with Wilmott, this time it is Skocic. Last Thursday, Dragan Skocic decided to leave Iran, even though he has not yet received his salary and other compensations, in order to partially satisfy the Croat who intended to return to Croatia in peace, Taj made some promises. The agreement reached shows that the former head coach of the Iranian national team is going to receive all his demands from the football federation before the start of the 2022 World Cup, but if this issue is not fulfilled, he will file a case against FFIRI with FIFA which will obviously include damages, delays, and other claims on top. FIFA also has an option to fine FFIRI for breaches of contract.