Carlos Queiroz closed the chapter of the two ex-Team Melli players , Hadi Aghili and Mehdi Rahmati and the saga of their return to the team by announcing that that “As far as I am concerned, these two players will never be invited to Team Melli as long as I am at the helm of the team.”

Both players have abandoned Team Melli camps for reasons that are only known to themselves. Their unprofessional acts was deemed as an act of desertion and swiftly dealt with by Carlos Queiroz.  However, as it is customary in Iran’s football, there will always be someone or somebody who would try to act as mediatory peace maker and try to influence the proceedings to return offenders back to their teams.  Such moves are very common in Iranian clubs and usually with a bouquet of flower and few kisses on the cheeks; the matter is resolved between the coach and the player concerned, that simple.

Lately, there has been quotes and pressure exerted by IRIFF officials namely the President  Ali Kaffashian and the secretary general Mehdi Mohammad Nabi , for the reinstatement of these two renegade players who have abandoned the team. Aghili left Team Melli  camp on the eve of a match without as much as informing the administrators, while Rahmati unlilaterlay announced his retirment from the team.

Grudgingly , Queiroz accepted that if these two players truly regretted their misdemeanor, he is willing to forgive them if they officially apologized to the their teammates, Team Melli supports, the federation and the coaching staff. Such apology must be in writing and publically announced.

Today , Monday 20^th May 2013, after the completion of Team Melli camp , Queiroz and the IRIFF officials had a meeting regarding the two players. The Portuguese coach gave the following announcement  to the media:

“This is my final statement about these two players.  I kindly request all of you to accurately reflect what I say. Recently , there has been much talks and rumors about the fate of Aghili and Rahmati. There were comments about the two players repenting and apologizing. In the spirit of reconciliation and Team Melli interest . we have given these two players an opportunity to redeem themselves and do the correct thing by submitting letters of apology if they really believed that they have committed errors of judgment. We were transparent about the matter and no other stings were attached. We  gave them a chance up 5 PM yesterday. No written apology came and hence this is the end of this episode with these two players.”

Carlos Queiroz then proceeded on talking about his current squad. He said that he is totally satisfied with these players who are at the service of the team and are well prepared for the crucial encounter with Qatar. “ It is these players that I want to focus on and work with. These are the troops who deserve respect and admiration for their commitment to the national team”. Queiroz added

 “ I want real players with full commitments to the team. I need brave players who will fight for the team , regardless to what post they are given.  We need players who are like soldiers that never abandon their team and never put pre-conditions for being team members . I am quite proud with my current players and it gives me a pleasure working with them.”

The Iranian football federation has charged “Shahrdari Tabriz” with corruption and relegated the already promoted “Azadegan League” club back to the lower division in an unprecedented event in Iran’s football.

Talk of corruption at the lower tiers of Iran’s league has been rife in the media and several football circles. The accusations and allegations that money was exchanged for favours in order to fix match results became common with many famous names mentioned in the process.  Many ex-Team Melli players were also mentioned either as brokers or participants in these illegal practises.

The Iranian Football federation eventually took control of the issue after its initial reluctances to act citing the absence of credible evidence. The catalyst was the popular “Navad” TV show in which a “Shardari Bandar Abbas” player , came openly in the program and accused Faraz Kamalvand, Shahrdari Tabriz’s coach of attempting to bribe him on the eve of a crucial match involving the two teams in Bandar Abbas fighting for promotion to the top division.

After setting up of a special investigation committee to probe  allegations of match fixing, incentive payments and  bribery, in the First Division of the Iran’s football League “Azadegan League”, the disciplinary panel of the IRIFF decided to relegate the “Shahrdari Tabriz”” citing numerous counts of bribery and attempts to influence several match results.

 The IRIFF also suspended the head coach, Faraz Kamalvand , along with the ex- Team Melli player , Sadegh Varmaryaz , who is the assistant coach of the club, from all football activities for two years and imposed a 300 million Rials  ( US$ 24,500) fines on each one of them for their key roles in this bribery scandal.

 The extensive sentencing also involved other ex-Team Melli players in the “Shardari Tabriz” club including Shys Rezaei, a notorious ex-Perspolis and Sab Qom player famous for his transgressions and pranks,  Ali Alizadeh and Mehdi Vaezi , an ex-Team Melli goalkeeper. All the three were fined for their peripheral roles in attempting to bribe opposition players , but none of them were suspended from football activities.

  The extensive investigation involved many other teams and sentences were announced in the IRIFF website. The federation did not indicate if the authorities , the police or the public prosecutors were involved in these investigation. Bribery and corruption is punishable by law in Iran and the lack of authority’s involvement in these investigations raised a few questions by the media already. The IRIFF promised a special press conference on the subject matter.

This is yet another chapter in the on-going global bribery scandals that has tarnished the most popular sport in the world. Asian countries are quite notorious for all sort of corruption scandals including bribery, the influence of gambling syndicates in the east to the power broking , behind the scene bribes, vote buying , blatant political influences , government interferences and match fixing in the west.

Recently , many Lebanese players were suspended accused of corruption including a National Team player who gifted a Qatari player a ball to score the only goal of the match in Beirut in a FIFA World Cup qualification match. Neither FIFA nor the AFC took the matter any further.

Asia of course , had its head of the football Confederation, Mohammed Bin Hammam a Qatari national ,  removed and suspended for life due to his attempts to bribe CONCACAF officials to vote for him in the FIFA presidency election.  Qatar won the right to host the FIFA World Cup 2022 against major competition , a result which has sent shock waves through the football world.

In Iran , there has been talk of match fixing for many years , but this is the first time that the federation has acted and came down heavily on the culprits and offenders.

The insiders still believe that the Sharhrdari’s relegation is the tip of the iceberg.

With his leg in a cast , Mehrdad Pooladi , Perspolis defender joined Team Melli camp for their first training session on Wednesday. According to Mehr News report , the 26 years old Perspolis player had a broken leg a few weeks back and his leg is in cast , however , it is not clear how Pooladi was named for the squad while injured and unable to play or practise!

Pooladi last league game for Perspolis was on the 15th of March against his previous club Mes Kerman. He has not featured since then for Perspolis due to the injury , but that did not prevent his inclusion for the Team Melli squad!

Pooladi’s cameo appearance at Team Melli camp involved joining Iran’s futsal team weight lifting training at the gym. Pooladi will have his leg examined in the next few days before final decision on removing the cast is given. It is not clear how much time the player will have available to recover and regain his form in order to play for Team Melli.

 

As part of the preperations for the upcoming FIFA Woerld Cup matches, Team Melli will be playing a friendly match against Oman in Muscat. The match on the 22nd of May will be played in Sultan Qaboos Sport Comples in Boshar and will be the only frindly for Team Melli before the match against Qatar in Doha.

 

Shehab Gordan , Sepahan and Team Melli Player has declared that he will not be joining the Team Melli camp due to some family problems. Gordan told Mehr News reporter that he has already contacted the Team administrators and sought their permisiion to be excused from the camp at this stage due to family commitments.

“I will be available to team melli anytime soon after this period is over and will train very hard to be included in the squad in the near future.” said the Sepahan goalkeeper who won the Hazfi Cup with his club this season.

 

After the conclusion of the first practice session of Team Melli on Wednesday , a press conferee was held by Carlos Queiroz attended by a large number of reporters. The Portuguese coach welcomed the reporters to the conference and emphasized the importance of theses coming few weeks where Team Melli will have three important matches which will decide its fortune and whether it will have a place in the World Cup finals in Brazil. Queiroz also pointed out that he is glad that the media has realized the importance of the team preparation and news and said that the large number of media personnel in this press conference is indicative of the importance of the next few weeks to the Iranian public.

After the welcome note , Queiroz said that all the facilities were provided for the squad and training has started in a good spirit with the support of the football federation. He also added in preparation for the camp in UAE has been, everything is going according to plan and no problems has been reported so far.

Questions from reporters started by mentioning the fate of Ali Karimi. Queiroz replied “ With all due respect to a player like Karimi ,  who has a special place in my heart and without whom the team, would not have progressed so far, my focus and concentration is on the players that are available for me right now and who will do the job against the opposing teams such players like Rahman Ahmadi , Shojaa Khalilzadeh and Haghighi. I really have no time to think about Ali Karimi at this stage”

Asked by another reporter if Mehdi Rahmati will be pardoned and accepted back in the team if he submits a written apology , Visibly irritated Queiroz responded “I want you all to note that today is the 15^th of June 2012 and we do not have much time until the first crucial match against Qatar. All my efforts are focused on the players in the training camp. If you want to talk about these players, then I will happy to oblige. I am not going to talk about the past nor turn my attention to trivial matters.  If you keep on like that we will reach a stage where you will start talking about Bagheri and Daei. I really don’t know what is going on with the press but you have to believe that we are under pressure and have to focus. I have no time to waste on these matters you are referring to.”

 Despite such straight and emphatic talking , the Iranian press continued such line of questioning unabated and insisted on asking about Ali Karimi and Mehdi Rahmati and whether they will be called to Team Melli.

Carlos Queiroz left the press conference in protest, never to come back.

 This is not the first time that Queiroz has stormed out of a press conference in protest against the media’s line of questioning that Queiroz does not think is appropriate.  Despite his efforts to accommodate the sensational and controversy seeking Iranian media, Queiroz has found it difficult to come in terms with media that reflects another downside of the country’s football.

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Tehran

An initial 24 players squad has been selected for Team Melli in preparation for the upcoming matches in the FIFA World Cup 2014 Qualification rounds. The squad will be flying to the UAE for the training camp where Iran was supposed to play a friendly match against Iraq. The UAE Football authorities objected and the game got canceled, however Team Melli has one friendly match arranged against Oman in that period.

The initial squad has no players from recently crowned league champions , Esteghlal as the Tehrani team is still engaged in the AFC Asian Championship league and will be playing against Al Shabab of UAE in a home and away round. The first match on Wednesday will be in Dubai with the return match a week later in Tehran.

9 players of the squad are from the other popular team , Perspolis who have just finished the season on a bitter and disappointing note as they lost the Cup final against Sepahan and were defeated in the last match of the regular season to drop to seventh rank in the final league table. This is one of Perspolis’ worst seasons in top flight of Iranian leagues , but such drawback apparently has not made any difference on selecting virtually Persepolis’s whole starting line up to Team Melli !

In addition to the 7  Esteghlal players  (Hashim Beigzadeh , Ali Hamoodi , Pejman Montazeri, Khosrow Heydari, Javad Nekounam , Mojtaba Jabbari and Farzad Hatami) who have been selected for the squad but not joining the camp until after the 22nd of May , it is expected that the legionnaires will also be joining the  training camp in the second phase. Players such as Daniel Davari , Omid Nazari, Reza Ghoochanejad, Andranik Teymourian and Masoud Shojaei will joining the camp as soon as the leagues they are playing in finishes the season.

The most significant absence will undoubtedly be of Fulham player Ashkan Dejagah, who has suffered an injury requiring operations and Ali Karimi of Perspolis who suddenly announced his retirement from football in the aftermath of his club poor results and defeat in Hazfi Cup final. Karimi has clearly indicated that he is not available for Team Melli selection.

In a separate statement to the press , an Iranian FA official has hinted that Mehdi Rahmati and Hadi Aghili , two ex-Team Melli players who have been disciplined by Queiroz, might be joining the squad soon. Apparently Queiroz had a meeting with head of the IRIFF Ali Kaffashian who asked the Portuguese coach to re-consider his decision on excluding these two players from selection since they both publicly apologized for their misdemeanors !

There was no comment by Queiroz on the case of these two players.

1	AHMADI, Rahman	Saipa Alborz
2	ANSARIFARD, Karim	Perspolis
3	EBRAHIMI, Omid	Sepahan Esfahan
4	FESHANGCHI, Amir Hossein	Perspolis
5	GHOLAMI, Mohammad	Sepahan Esfahan
6	GORDAN, Shehab	Sepahan Esfahan
7	HADDADIFAR, Ghassim	Zob Ahan
8	HAGHIGHI, Reza	Perspolis
9	HAJSAFY, Ehsan	Sepahan Esfahan
10	HOSSEINI, Jalal	Perspolis
11	KHALATBARY, MohamadReza	Sepahan Esfahan
12	KHALILZADEH, Shojaa	Mes Kerman
13	KHANZADEH, Mohammadreza	Perspolis
14	MAHINI, Hossein	Perspolis
15	MAKANI, Sousha	Naft Tehran
16	MOSALMAN, Mohsen	Zob Ahan
17	NOSRATI, Mohammad	Tractorsazi Tabriz
18	NOURI, Mohammad	Perspolis
19	NOURI, Pejman	Malvan Anzali
20	OULADI, Mehrdad	Malvan Anzali
21	POOLADI, Mehrdad	Perspolis
22	RAHMANI , Bakhtiyar	Foolad Khuzestan
23	REZAEI, Gholamreza	Perspolis
24	SEYED SALEHI, Mehdi	Tractorsazi Tabriz

Team Melli is commencing their training camp in the UAE next week , but a friendly match against Iraq National Football team was cancelled because of the Iraq federation decision to cancel their own team’s training camp in Dubai.

According to the Iranian Football Federation spokesman, the arranged friendly against Oman is still on the agenda, however , no further details were given on the dates and venues.