Iranian politics claims the Ghotbi candidacy

Roar Pro

By Jesse Fink, 17 Apr 2009 Jesse Fink is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: Afshin Ghotbi, football, Iran football, Mayeli Kohan, World Football

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Iran's Masoud Shojaei, left, is challenged by Saudi Arabia's Mohammad Al Nakhli during their World Cup Asia group 2 qualifying soccer match at Azadi stadium, Tehran on Saturday March 28, 2009. AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian

In recent months, I’ve been introducing on The Roar and The World Game the story of Afshin Ghotbi, the Iranian-American former coach of Persepolis and former World Cup assistant coach to Guus Hiddink, Steve Sampson and Pim Verbeek.

Ghotbi was a shoo-in for the Iran national men’s team coaching position vacated by Ali Daei but had the rug pulled out from under him – again, the second time in as many years – by the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation (IRIFF) for Saipa Battery manager Mayeli Kohan, despite being announced in the position a number of times on the preceding weekend in the Iranian media.

Kohan had negligible public support (three per cent in some polls against Ghotbi) and an average coaching record, but what he did have in his favour was the right connections – and connections count for everything in football, especially Iranian football, where the separation of powers between federation and state are non-existent.

FIFA, as well all know, has had a long and protracted tussle with the IRIFF over political interference in football.

Ghotbi, for his part, has been meeting agents in northern Europe and Scandinavia with a view to get a club gig there. He has also offered to help Kohan pro bono, especially with his intimate knowledge of Korean football (two of Iran’s next three opponents are North Korea and Korea Republic, games they must get a result in to have any hope of qualifying for South Africa 2010). There’s been no word yet if Kohan has taken him up on his generous offer – but don’t hold your breath.

Interestingly, some parts of the Iranian media have linked Ghotbi with a move to rejoin Hiddink, this time at Chelsea. But that seems fanciful given Hiddink himself has given no guarantees he will be staying at Stamford Bridge, despite the pleas of captain John Terry for him to stay on once the Premiership and European campaigns for this season are over.

But if he doesn’t go to Chelsea, he might just end up with Hiddink in Russia and go to the World Cup after all, where the old trio of Verbeek, Ghotbi and Hiddink (South Korea’s brains trust at Korea-Japan 2002) will be reunited.

Stranger things have happened. Don’t rule it out.

Again, and I wrote this for The Roar a couple of weeks back, it just underlines what a lost opportunity it was when we had Ghotbi in the country and he made all the right noises about wanting to work in the A-League but his overtures fell on deaf ears – apart from the ambitious and forward-thinking Tasmania United.

We live and learn.

As for Iran, which also spurned a golden opportunity to snaffle folk hero Ghotbi, it has its work cut out for it. It must get six of a possible nine points from its remaining Group B qualifiers and the trips to North and South Korea are away games. A tough ask.

No one in Iran is confident. The prevailing view of the fans and the independent football media is the IRIFF has blown it even before a ball has been kicked.

It’s not hard to disagree.

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The Crowd Says (30) | Page 1 of Comments

Slippery Jim said | April 17th 2009 @ 8:08am | Report comment

Ghotbi: The biggest non story in world football.

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md said | April 17th 2009 @ 9:17am | Report comment

Statistically, they are pretty close, and Kohan is currently operating with a 60%+ win ratio in the national league.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayeli_Kohan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afshin_Ghotbi

Cheers
md

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Art Sapphire said | April 17th 2009 @ 11:08am | Report comment

Jesse – get a few wealthy backers and form your own A-League club.

You can have Ghotbi as manager and Carle playing in midfield as your Marquee.

Problem solved.

Here’s the latest Nick Carle update.
“Carle: I’m A $2 Million Flop”
http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/101048,carle-im-a-2-million-flop.aspx

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Ben of Phnom Penh said | April 17th 2009 @ 11:28am | Report comment

Actually SJ, Ghotbi’s story is very much one of the IFF which is one of our most important immediate competitors. In December 2007 I recall the IFF courting Trousier and Verbeek and eventually they settled on Artur Jorge. Unfortunately the IFF was sanctioned by FIFA for political interference and a new board was eventually appointed and overturned the decision leaving Team Melli coachless a week or two before their first World Cup Qualifier. A couple of days before their first qualifier with Syria they signed Javier Clemente who wisely put off signing until after the game, which they drew. After the game it transpired that Clemente didn’t want to be based out of Tehran so the IFF tore up the contract and were going to sign Ghotbi as the best qualified Iranian for the job, however due to the dire straits of the IFF they went for Daei, presumably on the basis that he was a crowd favourite and the fans would be pleased (it is the best rationale I can think of as it appeared a poor decision at the time from an outsider’s perspective – which it proved). It was a last minute off-the-cuff decision as Ghotbi believed he had the job and had already said goodbye to all the players and staff at Kafshian where he was coaching.

The IFF once again find themselves in a mess due to their own decision making and have made another interesting (for the rest of us) decision in plumping for Mayeli Kohan instead of Ghotbi. Team Melli for me is a wonderful example as to how an association’s dithering can have a direct impact on the field.

In relation to the A-League, it is a matter of a very qualified coach being available and A-League clubs not going for it. I am undecided on this particular issue as whilst I am in favour of getting the best coaches available I am also wary of the English approach of dropping coaches on a whim. I think though that some of the coaches have had a couple of years with squads and have yet to produce results with the players on hand and Ghotbi could easily have replaced them. That said I do not know how much he is demanding on the wage front, nor the existing contractual obligations of the A-League clubs to their coaching staff.

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Jesse Fink said | April 17th 2009 @ 12:47pm | Report comment

Thank you, Ben of Phnom Penh. I’m so tired of this character sniping at my sincere attempts to broaden the Australian view of the world game. Please go away – or, if you don’t have anything constructive to say, don’t say it all.

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Slippery Jim said | April 17th 2009 @ 1:02pm | Report comment

Ben, an eloquent post in which you have explained the situation very well, and I can see the indirect association the subject has in the broader AFC national football environ.

I am simply not at all interested personally in the gent, it seems more a subject to savour for a national football connoisseur such as yourself rather than those bred on more rough bread and butter fare, or more to the point; shallow and sensation-hungry folk like myself.

I am just another willing participant in the magic show I guess

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Ben of Phnom Penh said | April 17th 2009 @ 1:20pm | Report comment

SJ, the AFC national football environment is one that I often struggle to understand. Certainly the recent, rather public, problems at the AFC in relation to the West Asia FIFA seat have thrown much of what I thought I knew into disarray.

I suppose what Jesse is trying to do here is generate debate on the wider engagement of Australia in the Asian football fraternity, coaching being one aspect of this. I read this morning that Fury are looking to tour Singapore and Malaysia for the pre-season and gold Coast’s links with China are well publicised; these are links that reflect our growing relationship.

I must confess that I do have an interest in Australia’s engagement with Asia as I can see this as a wonderful development tool for our domestic football scene. As such we need to identify those opportunities that Asia offers so that we can obtain the maximum return from this relationship. Coaching is one aspect that Jesse has identified, particularly in relation to Ghotbi, and hence discussion as to why the opportunity was not taken needs to occur.

The magic show is indeed fun and without the willing participants the game would not be where it is today though I do appreciate that discussions on the machinations that make the magic show what it is can be droll at times. Mind you the Cambodia v Nepal game I watched at the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh could certainly be described as rough bread and butter fare, though you would have starved if you were sensation hungry.

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Pippinu said | April 17th 2009 @ 1:29pm | Report comment

I agree with what Ben of PP is intimating, as interesting as this guy’s background is, it’s perhaps a step too far to conclude that each of the 8 A-League clubs were somehow remiss in not contemplating this bloke for a coaching role. There could be a whole lot of legitimate factors as to why it didn’t work out: timing, contractual obligations, money, and yes, maybe even a touch of ignorance and arrogance (on the part of club adminstrators).

But going over the last two season, which club would have been best positioned to take advantage of this wandering minstrel?

Before the start of this season, GVE was being hailed as the next NT manager.

The two great Scots who have been there since day one were doing well enough.

The Roar had nabbed a former NT manager (not to be sneezed at).

Vidmar took AU far into the ACL.

The Nix don’t really count.

That leaves the Glory and SFC.

SFC only truly imploded this season (they made the finals the previous three seasons, although they have managed their own version of musical chairs in a short space of time, and opted with a bloke who had achieved a degree of success in the first two years of the comp), while Glory have had recent coaching changes due to 4 reasonably ordinary seasons, and were perhaps best positioned to take advantage of someone like Ghotbi.

But then we have to consider the resources available to Perth (presumably, it’s not a hell of a lot), and how keen Ghotbi would be to take on such a basket case in the first place (in the end Perth gambled with an ex-Socceroo, which isn’t the worst scenario imaginable).

So I’m not really sure if the timing was truly right for Ghotbi to waltz into a club and weave his magic – but is it necessarily too late?

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Slippery Jim said | April 17th 2009 @ 1:34pm | Report comment

Ben, Cambodia (175th) V Nepal (169th) is certainly a niche story worth telling, surely – I always play Nepal on my playstation when I want an easy romp to victory on Pro Evolution! It would have been a fascinating tussle. Are the Nepalese players really as short as they appear on playstation?!

I suppose I have fallen for the old underestimation of Asia syndrome, you (and Jesse) are right that Australians should be paying more attention to AFC related matters. I will have to put away the fruit loops and pull out the all-bran (metaphorically speaking).

As for A-League coaching, I personally think (unless a club is focussing on the AFC Champions League and nothing else) that we should be looking (if no Australian coaches are available, as I feel the A-League should be a breeding ground for Aussie coaching talent) to countries that are superior to us rather then at or below our level for quality coaches.

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Ben of Phnom Penh said | April 17th 2009 @ 1:40pm | Report comment

SJ, they are shorter. It was fun to be at the ground to be sure. The Cambodians were all over the Nepalese, however didn’t use their height advantage at all (yes, Cambodia with a height advantage, who would have believed it) however had a single “Cambodian moment” in defense and the Nepalese pounced.

We drank beer out of cheap plastic bags with straws. It certainly makes you realise why they call in the World Game.

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