Differences in Iran over fulfilling FIFA ultimatum

DPA - There are differences within the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) over the new set-up to stop governmental interference and avoid a ban in line with an ultimatum by football’s world governing body FIFA, the ISNA news agency reported Monday.

The FFI has formed a special transitory board, which is charged with changing the federation’s structures to end a row with FIFA over governmental interference in the country’s football affairs.

‘The Iranian sports organization is still following its own policies and this might lead to problems and further deterioration of the already critical situation,’ Mohsen Safaie-Farahani, the head of the six-man special transitory board, told ISNA in an interview.

‘I cannot work under these conditions and might resign by the end of the week - FIFA should then decide what to do,’ added the former FFI head and renowned reformist on whose presence in the board FIFA had especially insisted.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran’s Olympic committee and all of its sports federations are run by the so-called Physical Education Organization.

The head of this sports organization has always been a deputy to the president. The position is currently held by Mohammad Aliabadi, who is also President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vice president.

FIFA in November suspended Iran for excessive government interference in football, but later agreed to temporarily lift the suspension until a new set-up independent of the state was approved until early February.

‘The sports organization must be ready to acknowledge this board and its decisions but we have not been able yet to met even once with (vice-president) Aliabadi,’ said Safaie-Farahani.

The FFI proclaimed last week that the new set-up would be finalised by February 7. If not, Iranian national and club teams would be expelled from all international games, namely this year’s Asian championship.

Changing the status quo would oblige Iran to exclude football from the jurisdiction of the sport’s organization but observers doubt that the Iranian government would give in to such a major political amendment.