On a TV show this Friday morning, Ali Kaffashian has urged the government to support Iran’s bid for hosting the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. The head of the football federation stated that Iran has only a few days to finalize its proposal with documentations and submit the bid to the Asian Football Confederation headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. Kaffashian emphasized the importance of government support in winning the rights to host the Asian Football premier event. He said that in other countries, even the Country’s head of state gets involved in order to support such a bid.
In the TV interview, Kaffashian said “When we approach the government official about ideas of hosting important event, we always get their encouragement and approvals. But when it is time for them to take action and give support or official signature on the documents for approvals, they disappear! One important factor about sport and football development is hosting of big events. Any country that has ambition and aspiration to be a powerful nation in football, plan on hosting tournaments and excel in doing that. Four years ago, there were two candidates to host the FIFA Futsal World Cup, Iran and Thailand. It was a great opportunity for Iran and we did our utmost to get the approval of all concerned government organizations and other authorities, but we only managed half the signatures required. We lost to Thailand. The decision for selecting the host nation of 2019 AFC Asian Cup will be taken in 2 ½ from now.”
Kaffashian was bemoaning the lack of support and difficulty in getting signatures. He said “ Although from our previous experience , we realize that getting the signatures from the concerned government authorities and ministries is a difficult and time intensive task, we will simply not give up and continue our efforts to win this important hosting. We only have a few days left, 4 or 5 to be precise. Since we will have a new elected President and a new government, we asked the secretary General of the AFC to extend the final day of submission for a few more days in order to get the right approvals. We are awaiting their response. ”
About the infrastructure for hosting the Asian Cup, Kaffashian commented that “ If we want to host the Asian Cup we must ensure that we suitably prepare the four cities, Tehran , Esfahan , Tabriz and Mashad and upgrade the facilities to the required international standards.”