Kaffashian seeks FIFA intervention

Reacting to the cancellation of the Iranian national team’s friendly against English side Charlton Athletic and African champions Egypt for political reasons, Kaffashian told www.the-afc.com, “Charlton and Egypt cancelled friendly games with us due to political reasons which should not be considered in football.”

“We have already sent a letter to FIFA and AFC requesting their intervention and we hope that the governing bodies will ensure no further recurrence of these incidents,” said the member of the AFC Football for Disabled Persons and Social Responsibility Committee.

He said the federation has given coach Ali Daei full freedom in the selection matters and the return of star players like Eintracht Frankfurt’s Mehdi Mahdavikia, Bochum’s Vahid Hashemian and Al Sailiyah’s Ali Karimi to the national side depended on him.

“We issued a warning to Karimi after he criticized the federation but his return to the team depends solely on Daei,” he said.

About Daei’s appointment as coach, Kaffashian said: “We were well into the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers when the new committee took over and they had no time to conduct long negotiations with foreign coaches.”
“We did talk to some European coaches but among locals Daei was the best choice. We knew that he had just more than a year’s coaching experience but he has shown his worth.”

Kaffashian also expressed his interest in developing women’s football and futsal in the South Asian country.