Mehdi Taj, the new president of the Football Federation, announced the outstanding amount of funds due to its federation and Iranian clubs from FIFA and AFC in his press conference today. Taj said: “The funds due to us is about 20.6 million dollars from AFC and FIFA combined. A very small portion belongs to the clubs but the majority belongs to the federation (FFIRI). US$ 20 million is a considerable number that begs the question of how inept the FFIRI is in not doing its best to somehow release such a large amount for a federation that is virtually bankrupt and repeatedly begs from the government and public funds.

Stating that he is looking to get US$ 8 million from AFC,  Taj announced the support of the Asian Football Confederation to enable Iran to hold a friendly match against Uruguay in Austria. The match that is scheduled to be held on September 22 was on the verge of cancellation. Taj said: “We have expenses and needed the money for a friendly match in Austria by today. We cannot transfer this money through normal banking channels. We thank the AFC for transferring the money to Qatar’s FA account. Qatar has also made the necessary arrangement to pay for the contractors in order to hold the game in Vienna. The arrangement for this camp was taken by the previous FFIRI administration. Today was the deadline and If we didn’t pay today, we might have lost the game against Uruguay.”