Kaffashian elected Head of Iran's Football Federation

DPA - The Iranian Football Federation (FFI) on Wednesday approved Ali Kafashian as its new president, ISNA news agency reported. Due to differences with football's ruling body FIFA over governmental interference in football affairs, the FFI has had no president since after the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

After the FFI agreed to approve new regulations for stopping any interference by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration in football affairs, FIFA gave its green light for the elections.

As his sole challenger, the pro-government candidate Sahahrokh Shahnazi, surprisingly withdrew his nomination on Tuesday night, there was no need for an election and Kafashian was simply approved by the assembly as FFI president.

The election ceremony was held under the supervision of representatives of FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation.

Iran's vice-president and sports chief, Mohammad Aliabadi, boycotted the election ceremony in protest against his rejection by FIFA as FFI presidential candidate.

Another prominent absentee was national team skipper Mehdi Mahdavikia who preferred to stay at the training camp of his club team Eintracht Frankfurt in Portugal rather than coming to Tehran.

The first task of the new Iranian FFI president is to appoint a new national team coach to lead the team to the 2010 World Cup qualification games against Kuwait, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.

The favourite is Portuguese coach Artur Jorge who has already held initial talks with the FFI transitional committee, but Kafashian refused to finalize the deal before the elections.

The two other options could be French coach Jacques Santini and German Peter Neururer, but Jorge is said to have demanded much less in salary than the other two and therefore has better chances of being appointed.