Iran may postpone hiring new national football team coach

Dec 30, 2007, 19:03 GMT

Tehran - Iran might postpone the employment of a new national team coach, the ISNA news agency reported Sunday.

According to previous press reports, Portuguese coach Artur Jorge had already been named as new coach and even held talks with the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) on Thursday in Tehran.

But as the elections for the new FFI president are to be held on January 9, the two main candidates asked for the deal not to be finalized until after the elections.

The two main candidates, Ali Kafashian, secretary general of Iran's Olympic Committee, and Shahrokh Shahnazi, head of the country's tennis federation, told ISNA that selecting the new coach should rather be the job of the new FFI president.

Since the news leaked out that Jorge is the top candidate for the trainer job, the Tehran sports press doubted whether the Portuguese would really be the best option.

Several dailies argued that Jorge has trained no big team for the last six years, suffered more losses than victories during his career and furthermore had heart problems.

The two other options of the FFI were French coach Jacques Santini and German Peter Neururer but Jorge is said to have demanded much less than the two.

Due to differences with football's ruling body FIFA over governmental interference in football affairs, the FFI has had no president since last year.

In the first round of the World Cup qualifiers, Iran has to play against Kuwait, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.

Before the qualifiers, Iran will have two friendly games against German club Hansa Rostock and the national team of Mali.