The Football Federation’s President has mentioned that Team Melli head coach is demanding 8 games to prepare his team for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup to be held in the UAE in January.

Mehdi Taj, who had recently recovered from a stroke, said: “I feel that the best thing that the Football Federation could do is to extend the contract of Carlos Queiroz and equip the building Peck that had been available to IFMPK for some time,” . The building was a strong support for the national team. Also, Team Melli jersey is of the highest quality available in the market. Another thing we succeeded to do was to charter a special plane for Team Melli travels before and during the World Cup. The Football Federation did not care about the side issues that are commonplace around the world, and it only focused on the best preparation of the national team. In this regard, all the clubs and football teams helped, and this resulted in the good display of Team Melli at the World Cup in Russia. We hope to see another excellent performance from the team in the third game.”

Commenting on his meeting with Soltanifar , Taj said “We had a meeting with the Minister of Sports and Youth, the subject of which was the planning for the third game,”

“To know what needs to be done and how to best prepare. We must also analyze and review all possible scenarios , results and outcomes on equal basis. The second round of negotiations with the minister was the Asian Cup. We need to have a training camp in the UAE, and eight preparation games to be arranged as recommended by Queiroz prior to the tournament. We are planning on this issue today and we have the support of the Ministry of Sports and Youth. I hope we can pass through the Asian Cup with full marks”.

Carlos Queiroz has indicated that he does not wish to continue with Iran after the World Cup 2018. His main grievances with the federation are lack of proper preparation and lack of quality facilities for the team. Queiroz has been given many false promises by the head of the FFIRI, both the current one, Taj and the former Kaffashian.

It remains to be seen if Queiroz will fall in the trap again and extend his contract or pack his bags and leave calling it a day with FFIRI.

Iran is in Group D of the AFC Asian Cup 2019 alongside Iraq, Vietnam and Yemen.