Despite Team Melli success in qualifying for the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 , it is highly unlikely that many fans from Iran will be making the trip to Brazil comes next June.
Abbas Torabian , a member of the FFIRI and former head of the Futsal committee, said that this World Cup will be the most expensive tournament for fans from Iran to attend. Torabian who was a regular traveler to Brazil during his stint with Team Melli futsal team , was engaged in a study to determine the approximate cost for Iranian fans to make it to Brazil and arrange a package for the fans. He is assisted by some Iran9an expatriates in Brazil and local tour operators to facilitate and support Iranians fans who can afford the long trip.
Torabian said that ” a plane ticket will cost around US$ 2,220 at least and could vary during the World Cup. The match tickets for the 2014 World Cup are the most expensive ever in the history of the competition starting around US$300. ” Torabian also noted that ” Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro are two of the most expensive cities on record and the cost of accommodation varies with the class of hotels. Good quality hotels is quite expensive compared to the prices in Iran or Middle East in general”. To make matters worst for Iranian fans, the distances between venues for matches could mean domestic flights of 2 to 3 hours, which is an added expense. “Brazil is a big country and the venue could mean a 2 to 3 hours flight ” Torabian said “It all depends on the draw that Iran will have, but in any case , we will be playing each match in a different city and venue”
“With the help of some Iranians living in Brazil , we are trying to arrange the best possible package for our fans, specifically focusing on accommodations in Brazil” Torabian said. “Considering everything , we expect that the cost of attending the World Cup for fans from Iran to be close to US$ 12,000 each”
With such prices as quoted by Torabian , it is extremely unlikely to see a flock of Iranian fans to Brazil. IThe last World Cup Iran took part was 2006 in Germany. Despite the large and respectable numbers of Iranian supporters in the stadiums, especially in Frankfurt where Iranian fans outnumbered the Portuguese 2 to 1, almost the majority of the fans where Iranian expatriates living mainly in Europe and some from North America. The number of fans from Iran was quite small due to expenses and difficulty in obtaining visas and hard currency. In Brazil 2014 , the numbers that would probably make it from Iran will even be substantially less than Germany 2006.
The best hope for Team Melli support comes from the Iranians living in North America and to a lessor extent expatriate Iranians in Latin America which is not a big number.
