PLDC - Tehran, One of the biggest problem's in Iran's football is deceitful people at all levels of the sport.

Iran is a country filled with not only football talents, but simply talent in general. In everything from sports to science, and arts to academics, Iranians have a presence that can be felt.

Football is Iran's most popular sport; it's just ahead of wrestling, which is traditionally Iran's national sport. This western Asian country's greatest achievement in the world of football is winning three consecutive Asian Cups (1968, 1972, 1976). Iran has qualified for four World Cups to date, and although Team Melli has never made it past the group stage, they have also never lost all three group stage matches.

Iran has many high capacity stadiums, hundreds of clubs, a multi-tier league system, and the country spends notable amounts of money on football. So many are left to wonder why this great country's football doesn't reach the climax that it should achieve; the answer is simple: shady characters.

At many levels of Iranian football (including coaching, management), shady characters are ruining the sport and keeping Iranian players from reaching their peak. There are so called dealers (dallaals) that want to keep Iranian players in Iran, and to themselves, so they can profit from a nation's talent, and fill up their own pockets.

Many people may not know this, but there are many foreign agents and scouts that are working to bring Iranian players to European leagues. So a logical question that may be raised is this: why do so many Iranian talents stay in Iran and do not take the step to Europe?

Iranian players are told to stay in Iran by these dealers. Sadly, these players are commodities to be traded, instead of being national treasures. Many of these players are given unrealistically high contracts in order to keep them in Iran, so that by the time they reach their mid-to-late-twenties, European clubs no longer want them. 

These young talents could take a small pay cut (usually only 10-20%) at the beginning of their professional careers and move to Europe, in order to make a name for themselves and to develop their skill level to be able to play in Europe's top clubs. But instead they are serenaded by these shady coaches and managers (who only want to help themselves and keep their own pockets full), and told to stay in Iran. They are told to stay in a league, which many of its clubs haven't paid their players since last season.

But the shadiness doesn't simply stop there. Some of these coaches and officials will even go as far as trying to defame European agencies that are working to bring Iranians to Europe. To sabotage these Europeans, some Iranian coaches make false negative comments to the media, and some of the shadiest ones even go on social media sites and leave negative propaganda on these agencies' pages, for thousands of people to see.

Without dropping any names, here is one example of this shadiness:  Mr. X (name withheld) is an Iranian goalkeeping coach who currently works with a lower division Iranian club. This individual has been chasing and begging a young Iranian goalkeeper to come to his club. Mr. X has even gone to this goalkeeper's practices, and bothered this player to the point that the team's coach was forced to tell security to kick him out. This coach really badly wants this goalkeeper to sign with his club; so bad that he is willing to take extreme measures and act unethical.  Knowing that a European agency is working to bring this young goalkeeper to Europe, X left a very nasty comment on this agency's Facebook page, in order to defame this organization, and to ultimately keep this young goalkeeper in Iran. The most ironic part is that Mr. X had previously asked this agency to bring him to Europe, so he can work with the clubs there. This so called professional coach is one of the many examples of shady characters in Iran's football, who are only looking out for themselves, and are destroying Iranian talents in the process.

So there you have it. The biggest problem in Iran's football is shady characters. Sure, the country's leagues and national teams could use more money from sponsors and investors, and its clubs could have more independence and be more self-determined, but when it comes down to it, the biggest problem is young talents wasting their best years in Iran. These players are told to stay in Iran by these profiteers, and being young and naive, they believe these dealers most of the time.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Sardar Azmoun are two young players that didn't fall for this trick, and as everyone knows, they are currently playing at a much higher level than they would have  been playing at, if they had stayed in Iran. Until more young talents start making the move to Europe, Iran's football won't improve, and that's reality.

By: Arman Tamjidi