“The stories on the players are false and rumors,” Ghotbi said Friday in an e-mail message. “The I.F.F. has not taken any official stand on this issue. We only saw the story in the international media.”
Ghotbi, who holds dual United States and Iranian citizenship after immigrating to the United States with his family in his early teens, was referring to the Iranian Football Federation.
After the match, in Seoul against South Korea on June 17, there were numerous reports that at least four of Iran’s players — Ali Karimi, 31; the captain against South Korea, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32; Hosein Ka’abi, 24; and Vahid Hashemian, 32 — were disciplined after returning home. Those four, and perhaps two other players, were told to remove the wristbands at halftime of the match because FIFA prohibits any expressions that can be interpreted as political. The game ended in a 1-1 draw, and Iran was later eliminated from World Cup qualifying when Saudi Arabia and North Korea played to a tie. But FIFA had been silent since the stories surfaced about the apparent repercussions for the players.
Green has become a signature color of the protests against the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president. Authorities in Iran have been dealing with street demonstrations after the apparent defeat of the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi in the election on June 12.
On Friday, Goal.com reported that FIFA had sent a letter to Iranian soccer authorities on Wednesday seeking information on the reports.
“We wrote a letter to the Iranian Federation to ask for some answers and clarification regarding the press reports over what happened to some of the Iranian players following the qualifier with South Korea on June 17,” a FIFA spokesman said.
Later Friday, FIFA officials told The Associated Press that they had received communication from Iranian officials in which they denied reports that players had been banned for life.
FIFA said it received a letter from the Iranians “which stated that no disciplinary action has been imposed on any players of the Iran national team by any authority.”
Ghotbi, who served as an assistant coach on the staff of Steve Sampson when the United States played in the 1998 World Cup in France (coincidentally, losing a first-round game to Iran) and who has worked in Major League Soccer, was brought in by Iran at the last minute in a desperate attempt to salvage its World Cup campaign.
He was under contract to the national team only until the end of the World Cup campaign, but he said in his e-mail message that he was currently “discussing a long-term plan of rebuilding the Iranian national team. The I.F.F. wants to continue, and I have given them a very detailed four-year plan. We hope to reach an agreement in the near future.”