Bijan Zolfagharnasb said in a statement to Mehr News Agency sports correspondent, commented on the selection of Marc Welmots as the new head coach of Team Melli by saying “I heard the news from the media. The federation officials decided to keep the negotiation completely secret.”
The former coach of the Iranian National Team continued: “I will take Mark Welmots selection and appointment as a good omen (..), he can achieve brilliant results with Team Melli if he is properly managed by the federation. Choosing a good coach is only half the challenge. Fifty percent of this is related to how the federation utilizes the coach.” Zolfagharnasb emphasized the federation’s cooperation with his committee ” the technical committee of the federation should continuously supervise and monitor the work of the coaching team. This certainly did not happen during Carlos Queiroz tenure. I did not consider Queiroz to be at fault in this matter. It was the contract signed with the federation that lacked clauses of supervision and oversight by a strong technical committee, hence he did what he liked at will”
Zolfagharnasb also supported the speculations that Javad Nekounam will be part of Welmots team.
Basically, Zolfagharnasb has proved that the Technical Committee of the FFIRI, which he is a prominent member of, is toothless and nothing but a rubber stamp for the President of the federation. One of the responsibilities of the Technical committee is the appraisal and approval of Team Melli and other National Teams age group coaches. Obviously this has not happened and the committee was kept in the dark as Zolfagharnasb himself admitted that he read the news from the media.
The fact that Zolfagharnasb approves Javad Nekounam’s appointment, which was an attempted failed move during Queiroz time, says a lot about the so called Technical Committee professionalism and work ethics. In principle, the federation should have a systematic and impartial mechanism of selection. Several candidates from a list of ex-Team Melli players or current coaches, should be considered not jut one person. The Selection process should pick a competent coach who has the right qualifications, the character, experience and the right motive to be an assistant to a foreign coach. Not only Nekounam does not satisfy all the requirements, it is unfair discrimination to many other potentially good coaches who will never get the chance to serve their country under such a dark and retarded system. The effect of hiring the wrong assistant Iranian coach is significant. especially taking into consideration that he might have a negative effect on his compatriot players.