Dubai

In a surprise statement to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) Nelo Vingada who has been brought by Carlos Queiroz to assist him, for what was believed the rest of the World Cup qualifiers, has confirmed  that he has not been asked by his long time friend to sit on the bench for Qatar match on Tuesday!

Carlos Queiroz is serving a two match suspension by FIFA and he is banned from the bench in Doha. It was believed that one of the main reasons for Vingada’s involvement in Team Melli was to replace Queiroz for this particular match where the Team Melli coach will not be present with his players.

In Dubai, Vingada repeated his prior statements about cooperation with Queiroz in any capacity he can or as requested, but did not explain the particular nature of this cooperation except to say that he has a good knowledge of the football in this part of the world. Vingada, currently the coach of Chinese club Dalian,  also mentioned that he has some person business to conduct in Dubai. His involvement with Team Melli will be for the Qatar match only as then he has to fly to Lisbon to attend a seminar from 11th to 14th of June in which  time Iran will be playing with Lebanon in Tehran.

In the absence of transparency and clear official statements from the Football federation and the Team Melli coach, regarding the true nature of the Vingada mission , the speculations will continue.

For a person  who always seeks and demands full and unequivocal support from everyone and in particular the Iranian media, Carlos Queiroz has not been too exemplary in his conduct and openness to the press.  The coach perhaps needs a reminder about his own obligation to the media and the fans, taken into requirement the confidentiality of some issues. This lack of transparency will only aid in suspicious media behavior and in a country such as Iran , where speculations and rumors have lots of takers, Queiroz and his masters are only fueling these unwanted issues and creating unhealthy environment which could be detrimental to Team Melli.

Someone needs to tell the public, the true reason for Vingada’s involvement with Team Melli. The public statement given about Vingada’s knowledge of Iranian and Persian Gulf football does not carry much credibility as both of these are very limited experiences.