Tag: Ebrahim Ghassimpour

Is Ghassimpour even qualified to pass important judgment.

A member of FFIRI technical committee, Ebrahim Ghassimpour took the initiative to announce to the media the decision of the FFIRI Technical Advisory Committee that Dragan Skocic is not suitable to coach Team Melli!

The official spokesperson of the federation counteracted Ghassimpour and said such decisions on Team Melli coaching appointment are the sole responsibility of the Head of the federation and the Board Members. It is not a technical committee’s responsibility as their role is advisory only. Furthermore, the FFIRI has an official spokesperson whose job is to communicate with the media. It is not the domain of the technical committee to do so.

So, without even being authorized to talk to the press, Ebrahim Ghassimpour decided to be a Maverick by declaring to the public that he and his colleagues did not find the coach that qualified Iran for the World Cup, as suitable to coach the same Team Melli!!

Let us look at this person and his own qualifications and achievements in management and coaching career. After a successful career as a footballer, Ghassimpour retired from playing in 1996 and went straight to coach. His qualification as a football coach is suspect as he has not successfully attended the recognized FIFA or AFC courses. Since he was appointed an assistant coach in his club Pas, nobody cared much about qualification or certification. From then on, he managed 15 teams without achieving any championship titles. That appointment included the coaching of the Omid Team which he failed to qualify for the Olympics and was subsequently sacked from his post in 1999.

After the Omid team, he managed 11 clubs almost all were lowly clubs in the league including a couple of short stints in the UAE league with Hatta ((less than 1 season) and then Emirates clubs of Ras Al Khaima.

Ghassimpour hardly finished one complete season with those clubs which he coached as he was frequently sacked or resigned when the going was getting tough. His last coaching appointment was 9 years ago at the then newly relegated Sanat Naft on 12 June 2013. After his failure to achieve promotion back to the first division, he was sacked by the club in 2014.

From 2014 up to now, for a good 8 years, Ghassimpour failed to get any coaching job even with second-division teams in Iran!

Is this the qualification of a person who decides for the nation if another coach is good enough to Lead Team Melli in the biggest show on earth, the World Cup?

What has Ghassimpour achieved as a coach to give him such a task? What criteria or mechanism do he and his colleague use to decide if Skocic or any other coach for that matter is good enough for Team Melli?

A person who has a track record of failures and does not understand official protocols, or does not respect it, shall not be allowed to pass judgment affecting 90 million Iranians. It is as simple as that.

Dragan Skocic is sacked.

After months of lobbying and pressure exerted from outside including the Minister of sport, despite the official denials, Dragan Skocic who managed to take Iran to the World Cup with immaculate results and recovery,  was officially sacked this evening.

According to the reports, a meeting of the technical committee of the FFIRI was held this Monday evening. This committee finally voted to dismiss Skocic; This follows the continuous and firm stand by the football federation that strongly dismissed the idea of sacking the present coach in the past days and weeks.

At the end of today’s meeting, Ebrahim Ghassimpour, a member of the technical committee of the Football Federation, confirmed Skocic’s dismissal but provided little justifications in this regard. Ghasimpour said:” Decisions were made today, the details of which will be announced on the website of the Football Federation. We reached a conclusion that the federation will announce!; We have both an Iranian option and a foreign option.”

In response to this question, is Skocic’s dismissal certain? He replied: “Yes. The technical committee did not confirm Skocic’s suitability (..). I can say this.”
Ghassimpour, in response to the question, why such a decision was not made much earlier? He said ” The federation did not refer the case of the suitability of Team Melli coach to us before. We didn’t confirm his appointment either, but we made suggestions about the next options, which can be both domestic and foreign”

According to Mehr reporter, Skocic was appointed to the bench of the Iranian national team on February 17, 2018 as a replacement for the Belgian Marc Wilmots, who put Iran on the brink of elimination from the World Cup qualifiers. The Croat Skocic managed a huge turnaround by winning 10 matches in a row and making it an easy job to qualify for the FIF World Cup 2022.

Iran under Skocic managed one official loss only 0-2 to South Korea in the World Cup qualifiers.