The national football team seems in limbo as it approaches the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, January 5-February 1 without a manager!
Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz’s contract with Team Melli officially expired on July 31 and there is no word about an extension.
Chairman of the Football Federation of Iran Mehdi Taj has said the Portuguese trainer has put forth a set of demands for the contract extension.
Conscription exemption is Queiroz’s main concern. A few days after the Russia World Cup he told a press conference that the situation is hard to bear “when (some of) my players’ main concern is the (compulsory) military service for two years that distracts them from focusing on what is their foremost priority (training and playing for the team)”.
Shortly afterwards, Iranian Public Conscription Organization lifted the hurdle by raising the conscription age of players to 30. As per law, men have to report for military service after reaching the age of 18 if they are not enrolled at the university or centers of higher learning. Alumni must join after their education is over.
The rest of Queiroz demands are related to payments.
Money Talks
To boost the national team performance, Queiroz has asked the federation for financial support to arrange friendly games for Iran with teams in the top spots of FIFA ranking or those with a better situation than Iran.
The federation has not yet checked out its debts to the Portuguese manager. The $700,000 payment pending to Queiroz is just one of the issues. Without saying what the coach has demanded in his new fee, the federation says the cost of the preparation games plus training sessions would be in the range of $5.8 million.
The value for the coach’s last contract with the federation was $2 million, putting him in seventh place on the list of the most expensive managers in the 2018 World Cup.
Among his conditions, Queiroz has also asked for league managers’ total dedication to Team Melli to allow their players to partake in national team training camps on demand.
During the preparation period for the 2018 World Cup, managers of some league teams were reluctant to let their players attend Team Melli training sessions saying they needed them more. This created hurdles for the national squad and its practice sessions for the global event.
In an effort to keep the Portuguese, who has taken the team twice in a row to the World Cup, Mehdi Taj has said the federation is trying to come to terms with Queiroz’s demands. Presently he is in Portugal and will come to Tehran to sign the new contract.
The respected and popular Queiroz has been in charge of the national team since 2011 after his three-year spell with the Portugal national team. Prior to that, he was with the La Liga giant Real Madrid, 2003-04, and served as assistant manager in the Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, 2004-2008.
