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GOAL - The New Year is already underway and
there will be a lot happening in Asian football. There are the AFC U16, U19,
and Beijing Olympics qualifiers at youth level. Then there is the AFC
Champions League which will showcase best clubs in the continent, and then
there is the biggest Asian prize of them all, the Asian Cup.
The good news for us Iranian fans is that we will be participating in all of
the above; the bad news is that ,as usual, we are barely prepared for them!
I am not going to go through the dreadfully painful practice of explaining
how we do not have a coaching staff in place for our youth teams, or how our
league champions Esteghlal of Tehran are committing self-mutilation in their
front office, the club house, and on the pitch.
No, in the spirit of the New Year, I am going to avoid negativity and look
at things from a positive and practical angel. So with that in mind, here
are my top ten steps that if taken could make 2007 a good year for Iranian
football:
10) Improve stadiums and pitches – Amongst the top five Asian
football powers Iran has undoubtedly the worst pitches. If surveyed Japan,
Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Australia’s top leagues would come ahead of Iran in
number of topnotch stadiums.
Tehran’s Azadi and a couple of other stadiums aside, the rest of Iranian
stadiums can hardly host an Asian Champions League match. Fortunately,
Iran’s 2007 representatives in Asia are Esteghlal who play in Azadi, and
Sepahan whose Naghsheh Jahan stadium needs only minor repairs to the pitch
in order to get approved by the AFC.
9) Start serious moves towards professionalism – The Iranian
Professional League (IPL) is professional in name only. Most IPL clubs are
sponsored by state owned industries. So in effect they are all directly or
indirectly financed by the government and none of them can financially
support themselves.
8) Start showing more club games on TV – Only Esteghlal and Perspolis
of Tehran get their games broadcasted on the government sponsored national
TV. The others get coverage only when they play one of these two teams so
the fans around the country rarely get to see and appreciate the talent
outside of those playing for the two Tehran clubs.
7) Bring fans to the stands – Because of poor facilities and lousy
atmospheres created by a rowdy and unruly minority, true fans stay away from
stadiums. Most games are played in front of crowds of less than 10,000; and
this in a “Football Mad” country.
6) Force the clubs to meet their financial commitments - Many clubs,
especially Perspolis and Esteghlal, are notorious for not meeting their
financial obligations. Many players and coaches do not get paid on time, if
at all. This is mostly because there is no financial accountability at
clubs’ front office, so they go on spending sprees that they are not likely
to afford.
5) Take advantage of FIFA sponsored training – FIFA regularly
sponsors training classes for everything in football. Iran should not only
improve its training programs for coaches, but also improve its sports
medicine and sports management training programs amongst many other things.
4) Improve refereeing – Iran has a few good referees who do well in
Asian tournaments. Like most other Asian countries however, its league
matches are often scarred by horrible refereeing. Good refereeing is
essential for having a healthy league.
3) Hire coaches for youth teams – Time is running out! The qualifiers
for the youth tournaments mentioned at the beginning of this article are
only weeks away, and the teams have no coaches!
2) Schedule decent friendly games for the senior team – The Asian Cup
is in July of 2007. So the coaches have plenty of time to pick and choose
their best 22 for this summer's tournament. To do that, they need to
carefully watch the league games, and try players during friendly matches.
1) Settle the case with FIFA – FIFA wants Iranian Football Federation
to rewrite its bylaws, and reorganize its infrastructure to match FIFA
standards and requirements or it will ban Iran until these issues are
properly addressed. So IFF bigwigs must get working on FIFA demands or items
2 through 10 above will not matter much!
Afshin Afshar
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