After a short rest following the match against Turkmenistan, Team Melli will have to embark on that epic journey to the Pacific Ocean island of Guam, the other side of the world, to play its National team. The match in group D of the FIFA World Cup 2018 qualifiers will entail a 40 hours journey and will involve several transits in airports such as Dubai and Seoul in South Korea before reaching the remote Island destination.

REMOTE DESTINATION
In this day and age and in a just culture, no person or group should be exposed to such inhumane and torturous journey for the sake of playing a 90 minutes football match. In the grand scheme of things, playing a match that means very little to both countries and teams, which adds no value to either Asian or World football standards, and costs a fortune in air tickets and other expenses.

It is a fact: [pullquote align=”right”]Human beings weren’t designed to spend hours at a time packed inside a pressure-controlled capsule [/pullquote]with recycled air and manufactured heat with hundreds of other people tens of thousands of feet in the air. Add in the jet lag and sleeplessness, and you have a recipe for true physiological torture.

This is one of the more preposterous, absurd and unfortunate side of football arrangements that no one dares to questions. What is a Pacific nation doing playing in Asia? . The governing bodies. FIFA and in a lessor extent AFC, as we all know rule supreme and with an iron fist. Questioning FIFA authority in terms of governance and match scheduling and arrangements , or not following its strict and more often than not, those ridicules rules of playing matches, will mean banishment from the football world and isolation from the rest of the globe.
Why is there no one in Iranian football federation or other AFC member states questioning this deal in which remote Islands of the Pacific are accepted as member of the Asian Region?

[quote class=”Speak up”]People, organizations and the fans need to speak up.[/quote]

It is beyond comprehension, logic and sanity to have teams travel thousands of miles for a football match and then probably return on the same day or after a little rest. Effect on health, mental status and the pockets are simply too great to be continually ignored and dismissed. People, organizations and the fans need to speak up.
One suspects that it is politics, rearing its dirty head in football. It could be some other dodgy arrangements with financial enumeration for FIFA or AFC. It could simply be for the sake of pleasing Big Brother, after all Guam is a United States of America protectorate, and the boys there need some entertainment so we push them in to AFC to enjoy round the globe travel and adventures.

I have nothing against Guam or any other nation for that matter, but it is simply too far and too torturous for central and western Asian teams to travel to. The same applies to Guam players by the way, we also feel for them as much as our teams. They should not be exposed to such torment either.
Last time I checked, Asia was the biggest continent in the world and it is several time bigger than Europe. Simply put, the football ruling bodies cannot and should not implement the same match scheduling because of the vast distances involved and different time zones in Asia.

It is time to act and stop this nonsense.

AFC needs to act, so does FIFA. Now that some wise guy had his fun , let us return back to sanity and stop these epic journeys. It is too late for Iran , Turkmenistan , India and Oman this time , but that leaves the two ruling bodies, enough time to ponder on this arrangements and come up with some sensible solutions that does not expose players to health risks , physical and mentally.

VISA NOT GRANTED!

On a separate issue, as if this long distressing trip to Guam is not bad enough, another major problem surfaced in the shape of granting visas for Iranian players to Guam. A US protectorate, Iranian Citizens, Visa Applications!!! that sounds alike a real case of pandemonium!! Now, we know that the FFIRI is not exactly the most organized and forward thinking football association in this world, but even if they were, the chances of getting it right would have been quite remote.
Whatever and whoever fault it is, a few players will not have received their visa’s on time or perhaps not granted a visa, as such, it is another good reason why Iran should not be involved in such competition which is beyond sporting. There are many reasons to leaving Guam in OFC to enjoy competing with its friendly neighbors who do not need visas to enter their country rather than
those get tangled with Asians with funny names.

Players such as Hajsafy , Azmoun , Haghighi and Ezzatollahei are all without a visa and will most probably not travel with the team. That is a third of the starting lineup who are unable to travel because of non-granting of Visa, so where is the justice and fair competition in that?