The Ministry of Youth and Sport relentless interference in football affairs is continuing unabated. In the latest of such meddling, the Under-Secretary of the Ministry has been preaching about football affairs. Seyed Nasrollah Sajjadi , who failed the vote of confidence by the parliament for his appointment as a minister , was speaking in a capacity of reference and knowledge of Iranian football, offering unsolicited advice to professional such as Carlos Queiroz while question the credentials of another , Kranjcar , based on shaky and ambiguous criterion from a self-proclaimed expertise panel of his ministry.
In his latest of many statements recently, Sajjadi criticized Carlos Queiroz for creating unreal situation and diverting attention while questioning the credential of a senior and seasoned coach like Zlatko Kranjcar.
During a visit to Khuzestan , Sajjadi denied any differences existing between his Ministry and the Football federation when asked about Kranjcar “ There is no such differences. Every foreign coach that has to work in Iran must pass the approval process of the Technical Selection Committee of the Ministry. Each candidate will be evaluated based on his Proficiency, Cultural background, legal issues and Conduct in public. “
“When we evaluated all the conditions, the committee did not find that Kranjcar had the suitable credentials to hold such a position.” Sajjadi claimed.
A reporter asked him “By refusing the employment of a Krancar for Omid Team , aren’t you wasting valuable time in our historic quest to make it to the Olympics after 40 years?”
“I don’t call that a waste of time. We are ensuring that we apply the laws of the country and to ensure the right quality of coaches are recruited for all our sports teams. It is the FFIRI’s fault for acting late. They should have started the selection procedure of replacing the coach much earlier!”
Sajjadi also ridiculed claims by the Football federation of lack of funds “Among the 47 sport federations on our books in Iran, the football has the absolute highest budget of 8.55 billion Toman . They have received almost all of their allocation by June this year. Only 550 million Toman is remaining to be awarded. This is in contrast to most other sport federations who received 50% or maximum 60% of their budget from the government so far.”
Sajjadi has also said that there is a standing agreement between the ministry and all sport federation in which each federations is required to declare and publish its balance sheet. The FFIRI has failed to do so, thus far.
Sajjadi had some harsh words for Queiroz. “He needs to stop mixing issues and coming up with excuses every time he is approaching a competition where he faces technical difficulties. He has to focus on his job and prepare the national team. Queurioz acted in the same manner before the World Cup and started a commotion with his imaginary and unreal problems to divert the attention away from him to some other parties. You have all witnessed that Team Melli had 3 training camps in Austria, South Africa and Brazil before the World Cup. It was conducted and completed without any problem.“
The only thing that remains now is for the duo Goudarzi and Sajjadi to send the final list of players picked by the Ministry’s technical committee to Queiroz.