Kaffashian announced that the priority for Queiroz is the FIFA World Cup 2018 not AFC Asian Cup 2015.

The President of FFIRI was talking to Mehrnews on the occasion of the imminent renewal of Carlos Queiroz contract to lead Team Melli for another 4 years.

Ali Kaffashian qualified his statement by saying “we do consider the Asian Cup as an important event but if we did not do well there , it is not the end of the world although it makes our job a bit more difficult for the World Cup in 4 years’ time !”

“We have instructed Querioz to use young players for the AFC Asian Cup so that we can reap the benefit in 4 years’ time in the next world Cup.”

However Kaffashian admitted that if a good result was mot obtained in Asian Cup, the pressure will mount on the Portuguese coach who is set to renew his contract as the highest ever paid foreign coach in the history of Iran. His asking price of US$2.5 million deterred the South African federation who were the favorite to sign him.

Questioned by Mehrnews about the critical views of Team Melli’s performance and results in Brazil , Kaffashian claimed that the majority of the fans were satisfied by the result.  He then mentioned Brazil loss to Germany by 7-1  to justify an apparent good performance by Team Melli!. We couldn’t relate the two matches together in any way of justifications.

Kaffashian confirmed that the post of Team Melli Manager will now be abolished, at least when Queiroz is around. The role of administration, organization and management of the squad will be all carried out by Queiroz himself.  The Team Melli Manager’s Post has always been present through the history. Indeed, many international football teams have such a post. Queiroz has not agreed to Kaffashian’s choices for this post, which rumored to have included Mehdi Mahdavikia, and instead ruled that he does not need a Manager and will take up such role in addition to being the head coach. Team Manager is a full-time job , including travelling to countries in away matches to arrange accommodations, training facilities arrangements,  supervising and managing logistics , negotiations and meeting with counterpart oppositions and AFC /FIFA representatives for pre-match coordination meetings.

The reporter asked Kaffashian about the enormousness of Queiroz contract, however the President of FFIRI denied that figure while refusing to mention the actual agreed terms. Kaffashian admitted that Queiroz salary has nearly doubled in the last term but that was really down to the currency exchange rates. “ His last contract figure was initially US$ 1.5 million and the new one is a little bit over that , but not by much.” Kaffashian claimed.

Be it a little over US$1.5 Million as Kaffashian claims or the US$2.5 million the South Africans claimed Queiroz was demanding, it is a huge amount for a federation that always complains about acute shortage of funds. But the real concern is for the fans, as those millions of hard currency dollars , will not guarantee Iran any success in the upcoming AFC Asian Cup in Australia. With Kaffashian already announcing that AFC Cup 2015 is NOT a priority, and Queiroz proverbial moans that he has no quality players that have played in the European Champions League at his disposal, it seems that the stage is set for the fans to add another 4 years to the 39 years they had to wait for a championship trophy by Team Melli. Kaffashian lack of ambition and in the absence of any true pressure on the coach to deliver will be another heart-break for Team Melli fans. They have to be content with nostalgia of Ali Parvin’s pictures lifting the Asian Cup in Azadi in 1976 to satisfy their pride and ego.