Mysteriously Flawed

An incredible appealing promise of “12 Confirmed friendly games” set for Iran National team’s World Cup Qualification preparation, announced by IFF, was soon shattered as there was no confirmation of such friendly games in place prior to Iranian team’s departure to Spain.

Starting with Marbella and Malaga friendly games, as soon as Iranian team landed on Marbella soil, the two friendlies were announced to be cancelled due to “La Liga’s postponed team trainings as a result of Spain’s lengthy Euro 2008 campaign”. The truth is, while neither of Malaga and Marbella teams had any players at Euro 2008 to postpone pre-season team training, two weeks after Spain Championship and prior to Iranian team departure, Iran Football Federation was obligated to confirm the friendly game status with both club officials and if required, postpone the fixture date to facilitate both teams’ conditions. After all, if the two friendly games were indeed officially agreed by both parties, the games would not get cancelled but postponed instead.

Next friendly game in list was Charlton Athletic. Despite the earlier official announcements only published in Iranian media, Iran National team friendly against Charlton was never announced by Charlton on their official website, nor was it ever confirmed by the British media. Hence, the rule of logic indicates a friendly game gets cancelled when there was no confirmed friendly game scheduled to begin with!

Iran Football Federation though, snubbed yet by another team as a result of their planning failure, cries wolf to fabricate Charlton’s move as a political manoeuvre. It would indeed be very humiliating for Iran football if IFF files her complaint to FIFA, only for Charlton proving to FIFA that there was no final agreement between two parties to hold a friendly match.

Let’s see what IFF has in store for Iranian fans and media for the next two ‘supposed confirmed’ friendly games against 2 Czech league club teams. Surely this time, the matches will not be called-off for the above reasons; As Czech had a short Euro 2008 campaign, and Czech is traditionally far from having politically biases against ‘the poor victimized Iran National team’. Yes, let’s find two more excuses to cover up our flawed preparation planning for Iran National team.